N° 157. 1983. Quality Control and Quality Assurance for Concrete Structures
This report tre ats quality assurance with particular emphasis on control aspects. It can be considered parti ally as be ing parallel to and partially as a derivation of the "General Principles on Quality
Assurance for Structures" prepared by the Joint Committee on Structural Safety and published by IABSE in 1981.
The mixed character of this report, partly conceptual and partly operational , corresponds to an intermediate step between principles and re commendations and reflects the fact that quality assurance (QA) concepts are only recently being incorporated to the cons truction field. The entrance door bas been the construction of nuclear power plants and experts in many countries are now intending to apply Quality Assurance concepts to more common structures.
As a matte r of fact, the actual meaning of quality assurance is still under discuss ion. Some connect quality assurance with ideas such as "recording", "documentation", etc., whereas others (among them, this report) emphasize the idea of "foreward thinking".
This report intends to contribute to clarification, not only in the structural field but even in wider fields of buildings . In spite of its incompleteness, this report aims at providing some technical guidance to drafting committees for codes on quality assurance, as well as at professionals in their current practice.
Although terminology used in the report has been care fully checked, it must not be considered as definitive, mainly due to the evolutive character of some of the terms.
The Task Group I/l "Qual ity Assurance" hopes that the information provided in this report wi ll be completed by the work of other Task Group s of CEB or other international organisations active in particular aspects of Quality Assurance. E.g. this is the case for chapter 4, where CEB TG VII/2 "Quality Control of Reinforcing Bars" and for chapter 6, where CEB TG IX/2 "Maintenance and Diagnos is of Concrete Structures" may provide further information.
The Task Group wishes to thank members of CEB Commission I for their
advice and to MM. Calavera and Moran for their particular contributions
to chapter 3 of this report.
