Inspection, Diagnosis, and Repair System for Architectural Concrete Surfaces

Architectural concrete has been used widely in contemporary architecture, especially because of the growing evolution associated with its shape, texture, and color. Thus, it is important to create and spread the use of appropriate tools to implement a maintenance strategy for architectural concrete surfaces. This paper presents an expert system to support the inspection, diagnosis, and repair of architectural concrete surfaces. It is composed of classification systems of anomalies, their probable causes, in situ diagnosis methods and repair techniques, and correlation matrices in which the relationship between these systems' items is expressed. The system also includes individual files for anomalies, diagnosis methods, and repair techniques, in which each is described in detail. The objective of this system is to standardize and systematize the inspection of this type of surface to improve the inspectors' performances. The implementation of this system supports periodic inspections within a predictive proactive maintenance strategy, improving their efficiency. The system presented was validated and adjusted through an inspection campaign of 110 cast-in-place architectural concrete walls. (C) 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.