How VSL builds strategic partnerships to extend the life of structures

As infrastructure ages, structural repair can no longer be limited to fixing damage once it appears. For asset owners and public authorities, the challenge is broader: understanding the true condition of existing structures, identifying critical risks and extending service life with the right level of intervention.

This shift reflects a changing market. Clients are increasingly looking to preserve rather than replace their assets, for reasons of cost, operational continuity, safety and carbon reduction. They need more accurate methods to assess structures, make informed decisions and focus resources where they offer the best value.

To address these challenges, VSL is building partnerships with specialised companies whose technologies complement its own expertise. Together, they help asset owners move from inspection and diagnosis to targeted repair, strengthening and follow-up.

Why partnerships are strategic for VSL

Strategic partnerships allow VSL to accelerate the integration of innovative solutions in fast-developing technological fields. No single company can develop every specialised technology internally, especially where innovation is progressing quickly.

VSL’s role is to identify the most relevant technologies, assess their technical value and integrate them into practical engineering and construction methodologies. The aim is to work with partners whose solutions complement VSL’s own expertise, rather than overlap with its core activities.

Partners bring specialised technologies and expertise. VSL brings the ability to qualify them technically, adapt them to real project conditions and deploy them through its local teams with the necessary engineering, safety and site execution discipline.

In practice, VSL looks for partners whose solutions are genuinely innovative and offer better value than existing technologies. This partnership approach allows both parties to assess how these solutions respond to client needs and how they can be turned into reliable, locally deployable offers.

From diagnosis to intervention: creating a complete value chain

Bridge deck scanning with Bridgology for advanced structural diagnosis

With partners such as Bridgology and GScan, VSL helps asset owners better understand the internal condition of a structure, locate critical areas and reduce uncertainty. Bridgology supports advanced bridge inspection and structural diagnosis, while GScan offers non-destructive scanning technologies that can help reveal hidden defects inside concrete structures.

Mondaic’s 3D ultrasonic scanning technology and its field application with VSL

In Switzerland, VSL also works with Mondaic, whose wave-based technologies support high-resolution 3D imaging and structural health monitoring.

Acoustic emission monitoring with MISTRAS on Tsing Ma Bridge, Hong Kong

In parallel, VSL has partnered with MISTRAS on acoustic emission monitoring, a technique that can detect the sound waves generated by material defects, including wire breaks linked to corrosion in post-tensioned structures. This active listening approach has already been used by VSL on projects such as Shenzhen Bay Bridge and Tsing Ma Bridge in Hong Kong, and on bridges in Saudi Arabia.

Monitoring data must be interpreted and translated into an engineering response. This is where VSL’s engineering teams play a key role: they use data and insights to develop a repair or strengthening strategy adapted to the structure, its constraints and the owner’s priorities.

VSL and re-fer bringing Memory®-Steel technology to the international market

When strengthening is required, VSL can offer VSL Memory®-Steel through a long-term privileged partnership with Re-fer, giving clients access to an active and lightweight strengthening solution suited to existing structures. Combined with VSL’s inspection and monitoring capabilities, this approach can also support follow-up over time.

In this way, partnerships help create a more complete value chain, from understanding the structure to designing and delivering the right intervention. This value chain only works if innovation is technically validated, mastered by the teams and can be applied on site. Advanced technologies must therefore be turned into constructible, safe and locally deployable solutions, adapted to client needs and real project conditions.

Extending service life through a more integrated approach

Strategic partnerships strengthen VSL’s position in repair and preservation. They allow VSL to support asset owners earlier in their decision-making process and help them move from uncertainty to more targeted, informed action.

In a market where infrastructure owners must do more with limited resources, this approach brings a clear value proposition: better diagnosis, smarter prioritisation, more targeted intervention and longer service life.

With its engineering expertise, local execution capabilities and growing ecosystem of specialised partners, VSL can help clients preserve critical infrastructure, avoid unnecessary works, maintain operational continuity and limit the carbon impact associated with demolition and new construction.

From partnership to project delivery

VSL’s partnership ecosystem becomes tangible through local deployment. Across the network, several countries are already helping turn strategic partnerships into project-ready solutions adapted to their markets.

Switzerland

Heidi Christen, Senior Engineer, VSL Switzerland Repair and Preservation Business Line

“While the partnership with Mondaic is still in its early stages, it is already proving to be a valuable addition to the toolbox of solutions VSL can offer its clients. When using ultrasonic testing devices, the data produced can be difficult to interpret, especially on highly complex structures. Mondaic’s experts generate high-resolution 3D models using physics-informed digital twins, giving VSL an even greater level of confidence in the insights and recommendations it provides to clients.”

United Kingdom

“Our collaborative partnership with Bridgology has established an evidence-to-delivery model that helps clients by combining Bridgology’s advanced diagnostic capabilities with VSL’s specialist delivery expertise. This gives clients greater confidence in the condition of their assets, enabling informed decision making and more targeted intervention planning, while also providing specialist repair solutions. By offering this combined solution, the partnership delivers a scalable approach to the long-term maintenance of critical infrastructure assets across the UK”.

Middle East

Jérémy ARCHIMBAUD, Business Development Manager, VSL Middle East Repair and Preservation Business Line

“The Middle East is one of the harshest environments for structural assets. Heat, humidity, and salinity accelerate deterioration in ways that aren’t always visible to the naked eye. Through our partnership with Bridgology, we can now go beyond surface assessments. Their enriched mapping technology allows us to detect hidden defects early, de-risk projects before mobilisation, without the need to remove the asphalt layer or coating. Instead of applying the same treatment across an entire structure, we use Bridgology’s data to build a targeted, condition-based repair and preservation strategy, tailored to what each structure actually needs. The result for our clients is a true one-stop-shop: from diagnosis to execution, guided by real intelligence, not assumptions.”

Australia

Stuart Robertson, General Manager, VSL Australia Repair and Preservation Business Line

“In Australia, the repair and strengthening market is particularly mature with many reputable players. To effectively compete, it is imperative that VSL differentiates itself through highly technical solutions and innovations. Our partnership with Re-fer and the development of VSL Memory Steel has done just that. The application of this ingenious shape memory alloy technology has put VSL at the forefront of the structural strengthening market, and is a fitting development to build on our traditional post-tensioning solutions. This complementary partnership has also helped Re-fer bring their next-generation product to an entirely new market, with VSL helping to adapt the use of the technology to the Australian construction sector and the need to prolong service life of critical aging infrastructure.”