Maintenance and anti-corrosion systems

The maintenance of infrastructure has become urgent world-wide concern. Even for bridges alone, it is considered to be very hard economically, socially and technically to maintain all of them in a healthy condition because of the large size. One cannot optimistically expect sufficient budgets for the maintenance in view of the current unfavorable economic condition of infrastructure holders and people’s indifference to the needs of such maintenance. Under these circumstances, nevertheless, the Asset Management System (AMS) is drawing much attention. The strategy for maintenance of offshore structures including very large floating structures (VLFS) should follow the similar principle as that for bridge and land-based structures. As compared with the land-based structures, offshore structures are considered to be much more vulnerable to corrosion. However, in the area of the VLFS, the maintenance policy has not been well established because of its relatively new history and the fact that only a few VLFSs are in existence. Thus, it is proposed that the necessary concepts of the AMS be adopted for VLFSs.