The Need and the Pain
Concrete is the most common man-made material.
Annual worldwide production approaches one ton of concrete per habitant.
For owners and managers, decaying concrete structures not only represent a major safety issue but also impose a growing financial burden at a time of unprecedented budget restrictions. According to recent estimates, more than $1.6 trillion is needed over the next five years to restore the condition of North American infrastructure.
It is therefore imperative to find cost-effective solutions to improve the design of new construction and optimize the maintenance of existing structures. The industry has clearly identified the urgent need for the accelerated development and introduction of innovative new technologies and processes to ensure the quality, durability, efficiency, and sustainability of our infrastructure systems as well as support sound asset management and decision-making.
Our Technology
The fruit of 10 years and more than 7 million dollars in research
SIMCO Technologies’ STADIUM® software is currently recognized as the most efficient and accurate numerical solution for the prediction of the long-term behavior of concrete structures exposed to a wide range of aggressive environments. STADIUM® is sophisticated finite element analysis software, which reliably predicts concrete degradation kinetics and time to initiate reinforcing steel corrosion. It offers assistance for optimal material selection and identification of cost-effective rehabilitation strategies for maximum service-life extension.
Extensively validated through multiple real-life projects,
STADIUM® has been used so far in more than 100 high-profile projects.
Markets
Concrete infrastructure management is a multi-billion dollar market.
Clients include private and public owners, engineers, architects, material producers,
and contractors. Demand is growing at 20% per year.
Competition
Although the construction industry is clearly in need of life-cycle cost analysis tools that explicitly take into account the impact of material degradation, few reliable solutions are currently available on the market. Practical experience and visual inspections are clearly not sufficient to properly manage concrete structures and ensure their safety. A few unsophisticated software applications are accessible free-of-charge on the web: these offer simple and non-validated solutions to highly complex problems.
Given the growing importance of the problem, numerous academic groups are also working on the development of more complex approaches. So far, none have been systematically tested against real-life cases, thus preventing their use by licensed engineers.
