An expert system for the evaluation of reinforced concrete structure durability

A user-friendly expert system has been developed to evaluate primarily the durability of reinforced concrete structures, either in the design phase or during service life related to reinforcement corrosion. Besides the durability module, the ES has been provided with three other expert modules in order to support the user during the following activities: inspections, corrosion diagnosis and repair strategy (of concrete and reinforcement). Corrosion induced by carbonation and chlorides penetration and caused by concrete degradation such as sulfate attack, freeze thaw cycles, alkali silica reaction are considered. The knowledge used for the Expert System built up is based both on open literature and international standards as well as on specific experiences and proprietary data bases. The paper describes main features of the system, including the modeling of the knowledge, input data, the algorithms, the rules and the outputs for each module.