Life-Cycle Performance of Deteriorating Structures: Foreword

The incorporation of the life-cycle performance of civil infrastructure systems related decision-making is essential to ensure that the needs of society are optimally met. As much progress in research on the life-cycle performance of civil infrastructure systems has been made in past years, it is time to evaluate the existing state of research and application, and focus future research. With this in mind, two workshops were held in Lausanne in March 2003 to focus future research on three important themes of life-cycle cost analysis and design of civil infrastructure systems : - risk-based safety evaluation of structures, - infrastructure related decision-making and - deterioration modelling - identification and implementation of a generally acceptable basis for the probabilistic modelling of deterioration processes in concrete structures and general aspects of the modelling time evolutionary processes.