Strengthening, Monitoring and Life-cycle Assessment of Metallic Structures
organised by Dr. Elyas Ghafoori from Empa, Switzerland

There are a large number of metallic structures, such as railway and highway bridges, off-shore structures, pipelines, communication towers and mining equipment, which are aging because of fatigue and corrosion damages. The increasing service loads and harsh environmental conditions make these structures even more vulnerable. On the other hand, although methods for the strengthening of concrete structures have been already well developed and used in many practical cases, this is not the case for metallic structures. There is clearly a need for studies that aim to develop feasible retrofitting methods, along with design approaches, for the strengthening of metallic members.

This special session will share new research results on static and fatigue strengthening of metallic structures using traditional or advanced materials and will provide a platform for researchers to discuss and compare their research results and to enhance future collaboration in this topic. Furthermore, this special session covers the following topics and also other related topics:

• Assessment, management and strengthening techniques for existing metallic bridges
• Retrofit solutions using CFRP materials (e.g., bond behaviour, pre-stressing methods)
• Rehabilitation and monitoring of steel-concrete composite structures
• Structural health monitoring (SHM) of steel bridges
• Experimental, numerical and analytical studies on static and fatigue assessments of critical details (e.g., welded and riveted details) in metallic structures.

Durability and Corrosion Monitoring of Concrete Infrastructures
organised by Prof. Dr. Ueli Angst, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

There is a high number of reinforced and prestressed concrete infrastructures worldwide. In many countries, the continuous ageing of these structures poses grand challenges to engineers, owners, and society. The most frequent cause for premature deterioration is corrosion of the embedded reinforcing or prestressing steel. This impacts the safety and serviceability of the structures and gives rise to high costs related to maintenance works. It is crucial to reliably and cost-efficiently diagnose the condition of existing, ageing infrastructures, especially the corrosion state of reinforcing and pre-stressing steel in the concrete. 

This Special Session will serve as an exchange platform for researches and practitioners dealing with the following topics: 

• Technologies to monitor the durability and corrosion of concrete structures
• Sensors to be continuously embedded in the concrete
• Non-destructive test methods to assess the risk for corrosion or to asses the corrosion state
• Standards and owner policies to handle the acquired data
• Benefits of durability monitoring and related strategies at the decision-taking level 

SHM between research and application: new concepts for new technologies
organised by Prof. Yuri Petryna from Technical University Berlin, Germany

Engineering structures usually have a long expected service life, a high level of safety requirements and a huge importance for future sustainability. On the other side, they are critical component of the modern infrastructure due to aging and deterioration effects as well as multiple hazards like earthquakes, collisions or incidents. The structures can fulfill those reliability requirements only by use of structural health monitoring.

This Special Session will serve as an exchange platform for researches and practitioners dealing with the following topics:

• concepts and technologies for structural health monitoring,
• computational modelling and structural failure analys
• load measurement and state assessment of existing structures,
• damage detection, localization and assessment,
• uncertainty quantification and decision making for SHM,
• data acquisition and assimilation in the framework of SHM,
• case studies on various structures like bridges, dams, tunnels, wind turbines, etc.

Testing, Inspection, Monitoring and Repair of Offshore Wind Energy Converters
organised by Dr. Matthias Baessler and Ronald Schneider, BAM, Germany

The development of Offshore Wind Energy in recent years is accompanied with various technical challenges. Serial production of structures installed in an aggressive environment results in numerous questions on the optimization of structural design and operation and maintenance strategies. Fatigue deterioration is often predominant but also degradation of corrosion protection and other deterioration processes play a role. The pressure for more cost efficiency in operation is high. However, experience is still comparatively low and structures tend to become even more ambitious with respect to size.    

This Special Session will share new developments on Wind Energy-related Offshore Structures. The discussion of open technical questions and its solutions is intended. The main focus will be:

• Testing of materials and components
• Inspection concepts and experience
• Challenges in SHM of Offshore Structures
• Benefits of SHM in inspection planning
• Structural damage detection
• Maintenance and Repair solutions
• Standardization

Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs) for Engineering Applications
organised by Dr. Moslem Shahverdi from Empa, Switzerland

Shape memory alloys (SMAs) are identified with several unique phenomena such as the shape memory effect, superelasticity, large damping capacity or a two-way shape memory effect. The importance of building modern structures and the renovation and conservation of existing infrastructure increases, therefore, advanced structural materials like SMAs have to be employed to improve the load-carrying capacity and serviceability of infrastructure and designing new structures are required.

The Special Session of “Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs) for Engineering Applications” at SMAR2019 will provide a great opportunity to exchange views and new ideas with colleagues from all around the world in the field. We are expecting to receive papers dealing with cutting-edge issues on research and application of SMAs in structural engineering. The scope is on all type of alloys and the connected technologies which can be used in civil engineering infrastructures. The topics of the Special Session include, but are not limited to:

1. Alloy designing of SMAs for structural engineering including:
• Nickel-titanium-based SMAs
• Copper-based SMAs
• Iron-based SMAs
• Aluminum-based SMAs
2. Applications of SMAs for structural engineering using:
• Damping capacity of SMAs
• Superelasticity of SMAs
3. Applications in structural engineering using shape memory effect of SMAs for tensioning applications as:
• Coupling, Fastener
• Tendon
• Concrete reinforcement
• Steel structures
• Near surface mounted reinforcement
• Short fibres
4. Actuator applications of SMAs in structural engineering
5. Active vibration control in structural engineering using SMAs
6. Hybrid composites of shape memory alloys and polymers for structural engineering
7. SMAs as sensors for health monitoring of structural engineering
8. Modeling of the SMAs applications in structural engineering including
• Material constitutive models
• Structural behaviour models
• Long term behaviour models