Preventive maintenance: What is at stake?

Prestressing tendons, stay-cables, ground anchors, bearings and expansion joints are all structural components which carry very high, concentrated loads. They are critical for the safety and usability of any structure.

Being highly solicited and exposed, many of these components have a useful life, which is substantially shorter than that of the structure itself. Preventive maintenance is hence key to ensure their safe functioning and to prevent premature failure.

Codes, standards and best practice guidelines oblige owners to ensure they undergo regular preventive maintenance in order to ensure user safety. This is also essential to avoid any major service disruption and financial loss.

The complexity and criticality of these systems and components call for regular maintenance interventions conducted by specialists, who understand structural behaviour as well as component design, installation and maintenance history and component functioning.

How VSL can help you

As a specialist designer, manufacturer and installer of structural systems and technologies since the 1950s, VSL has the knowledge and experience to deal with these components and to provide best-of-industry services and solutions.

VSL’s engineers are there to advise owners, concession holders and consultants on value-for-money creation, by scheduling the right interventions at the right time along the life-cycle of the structure. Our highly skilled and experienced local teams deliver proximity maintenance services everywhere in the world.

VSL’s approach to preventive maintenance is applicable to VSL’s own system components, as well as third party products.

Preventive maintenance is often combined with other inspection, assessment and monitoring services.

As a partner, VSL is able to help you define the maintenance plans, as early as during the design and construction stage, or at any later stage during the structure’s life-cycle. Sooner is better, and it’s never too late!

Right Now
AInspector: Using Artificial Intelligence to build reliable preventive maintenance plans

In partnership with the Chair in Construction 4.0 at Centrale Lille in France, VSL is developing AInspector, an artificial intelligence-based tool dedicated to preventive maintenance. Benefiting from consolidated data acquired over the years by VSL, AInspector will be able to forecast the evolution of a structure’s condition with greater reliability, allowing highly informed decisions on preventive maintenance plans.

What are the VSL preventive maintenance solutions?

1. Preventive maintenance specific to individual structural components and systems (post-tensioning cables, stay-cables, ground anchors, bearings, dampers, expansion joints…) including:

  • engineering services;
  • definition of maintenance plans and methods;
  • specialised equipment;
  • field operations.

2. A range of complementary solutions to enhance the durability and effectiveness of maintenance, including:

  • Monitoring and data analysis;
  • Inspection;
  • Assessment;
  • Repairs or replacement;
  • Upgrading.

Solutions that can be combined with preventive maintenance

    Do you have a project in mind?

    Get in touch now!


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