Concrete Repair, Rehabilitation and Retrofitting III—Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Concrete Repair, Rehabilitation and Retrofitting (ICCRRR) Cape Town, South Africa, September 3 -

The Third International Conference on Concrete Repair, Rehabilitation and Retrofitting (ICCRRR 2012) was held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 3 to 5 September 2012. The conference was the latest in a sequence of ICCRRR international conferences, the two previous ones having also been held in Cape Town in 2005 and 2008. It was again a collaborative venture of the Universities of Cape Town and The Witwatersrand, and the Construction Materials Sections at Leipzig University and MFPA Leipzig in Germany.

The conference was also an occasion to honour the considerable achievements of Professor Joost Walraven of TU Delft who has made, as a researcher and as an engineer, outstanding and international contributions to the development and application of new construction materials, new structures, and structural models.

This 3rd ICCRRR was held in conjunction with the Annual RILEM Week – marking the first time that RILEM had held its annual event in sub-Saharan Africa. The African continent is on the move, and the next decades will provide great opportunities for expansion on this continent of science and technology, industry and culture. For this reason, it was timely that the RILEM Week was held in Cape Town.

Considerable progress has been made in recent years in understanding deterioration mechanisms for concrete, and in repair and rehabilitation technologies. Nevertheless, a vast stock of concrete infrastructure worldwide remains in a serious state of disrepair, and substantial work is needed to maintain and possibly restore it to acceptable levels of service, cost-effectively. Confidence in concrete as a viable construction material must be retained and sustained, particularly considering the environmental challenges that the industry and society now face.

The conference proceedings contain papers presented at the conference, classified into a total of 12 sub-themes which can be grouped under the five main themes of (i) Concrete durability aspects, (ii) Condition assessment of concrete structures, (iii) Concrete repair, rehabilitation and retrofitting, (iv) Developments in materials technology, assessment and processing, and (v) Concrete technology and structural design. In terms of submissions, major foci of interest are the fields of innovative materials for durable concrete construction, integrated service life modelling of reinforced concrete structures, NDE/NDT and measurement techniques, repair methods and materials, and structural strengthening and retrofitting techniques. The large number of high-quality papers presented and the wide range of relevant topics covered confirm that these proceedings will be a valued reference for many working in the important fields of concrete durability and repair, and that they will form a suitable basis for discussion and provide suggestions for future development and research.

Professor Mark G. Alexander, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Dr Hans-Dieter Beushausen, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Dr Frank Dehn, MFPA Leipzig, Germany
Dr Pilate Moyo, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Cape Town, South Africa