Ebook: Durability of Building Materials and Components 8: Service life and durability of materials and components

The 8th International Conference on Building Materials and Components (8DBMC), held in Vancouver from May 30 to June 3, 1999, represents the most recent triennial conference. The previous seven conferences were held in Ottawa (1978), Gaithersburg (1981), Espoo (1984), Singapore (1987), Brighton (1990), Omiya (1993), and Stockholm (1996). The proceedings have been published in four volumes. The first volume, "Service Life and Durability of Building Materials and Components," contains four parts each reflecting contributions made to the durability of specific building materials, namely: concrete, masonry, wood, and polymers. Within the part on concrete, there are several subsections including service life prediction of concrete structures, studies on strength and durability, corrosion, and papers on issues related to design and innovation. The second volume "Durability of Building Assemblies and Methods of Service Life Prediction," contains six parts, the first three of which provide papers related to environmental characterization, building facades, and roofing materials and components. Within this last area, roofing maintenance management has likewise been included to provide the collected works in the area of roofing as a distinct part of the proceedings. The final three parts of this volume focus on methods of service life prediction, including probabilistic and reliability methods, generic methods, and lastly, development and use of guides and standards. "Performance, Service Life Prediction and Sustainable Construction" is the third volume in which the collected works are presented in four parts, starting with maintenance management and followed by life cycle costing, performance and serviceability of buildings, life cycle analysis and sustainable design. The final volume "Information Technology in Construction: CIB W78 Workshop," represents those papers submitted to the workshop and is prepared in eight sections including computer-integrated construction, the construction process, decision-support systems, design systems, life-cycle models and facilities management, product modeling, process modeling, and virtual reality. Collectively these contributions provide a selected overview of approaches, methods, techniques, tools, systems, and technology used to develop knowledge on the service life durability of construction and building materials, components, and assemblies, and the integration of this information towards asset management. As such, it provides an outline of the issues, insights into the research, knowledge of the techniques, and a robust discernment of useful technologies. These proceedings will be of interest to construction researchers, practitioners, and designers concerned with service-life prediction and durability, as well as asset managers interested in obtaining knowledge about the most recent innovations currently being considered as management tools. Information technologists will find considerable scope towards the application side of their emerging technologies.