1. CONREPNET Performance based rehabilitation of reinforced concrete structures Members workshop – London – 24 & 25 April 2006 CE marking of concrete repair products Ing. G. Van der Borgh Technical Adviser FEREB

2. European Standards CEN on concrete repair& protection EN 1504 - Products & systems for the protection and repair of concrete structures - Set of 10 aspects that relate to the design and execution of repair remediation treatments

3. These standard will fulfil a number of functions : - To specify a minimum performance level, so that a product can attain approvals for sales in Europe for a given application ! - To remove technical barriers to trade with a repair product being deemed to satisfy specification requirement by meeting the defined performance level, whatever the country of manufacture! - To provide reference to identification test, by which a product may be sampled, checked and confirmed to be in accordance with the manufacturer’s specification !

4. These standard will fulfil a number of functions : - To provide reference to relevant performance test, by which the designer & specifier can select the most appropriate product for the repair ! - To provide standardised approaches for the design and execution of repair to concrete structures !

5. The 10 parts are : - EN 1504-1 : General Scope and definitions - EN 1504-2 : Surface protection systems - EN 1504-3 : Structural and non structural repair - EN 1504-4 : Structural bonding - EN 1504-5 : Concrete injections - EN 1504-6 : Grouting to anchor reinforcement or to fill external voids - EN 1504-7 : Reinforcement corrosion prevention - EN 1504-8 :Quality control and evaluation of conformity - EN 1504-9 :General principles for use of products and systems - EN 1504-10:Application of products and systems and quality control of the works

6. The actual situation : - All document have been published ! - Document EN 1504-1and EN 1504-9 are already mandatory as from 2002 - Document EN 1504-2 (Surface protection), EN 1504-4 ( Structural bonding) and EN 1504-5 ( Injection) have a 1 year transition period being mandatory as from September 2006. - Document EN 1504-3 ( Structural & non structural repair) was already promised to be ready end 2005, the new expectation is an introduction before the holiday period of 2006.

7. The problem ! - The performances required in these documents as well as the production controls ( 2+/4) have been set to satisfy all European Countries, meaning that some will have to face higher performances, but others will have to deal with mush lower requirement and controls than what they actually require in there actual national agreement and they will request, as we will do in Belgium, on a voluntary base, additional performance and control of the production by a certified party, from the manufacturer, which conflicts with the initial idea of removing the technical trade barriers in Europe ! - If these voluntary additional requirements, being probably all different from each other, either based on needed higher performance for specific jobs (?), either simply to protect own manufacturers, will be used all over Europe, this will more than confuse consultants, specifiers and contractors and definitively will impact on the durability of concrete repairs !

8. The request to CON REP NET : - Can CON REP NET investigate, now or in a later phase, if other European Countries will request (voluntary) additional performance and controls of the concerned products ? - Can CON REP NET set up a review on all this, so to inform the relevant partners involved ?