Climatic parameters and atmospheric pollution are highly relevant to the degradation of several building materials like construction metallic materials, concrete structures and plasters of buildings, bridges or art sculptures. Degradation of not only metal materials, but also other construction materials (concrete, glass, etc.) by chemical environmental loads is an increasingly serious problem not only in Slovakia, but all over the world. The atmosphere and, ultimately, the hydrosphere could be particularly polluted by industrial activity, thus causing an increased corrosion aggressiveness of atmosphere. In the article, the air pollution impact on stone materials and carbon steel in Slovak Republic is observed. In the evaluation, there are used dose-response functions, which were developed based on long-term research by the other authors. Effectively, multi-annual climatic parameters and parameters of air pollution in Slovak Republic were used for generation of the maps of annual average surface loss of stone materials and carbon steel.One of the priorities of that research is creation of corrosion maps of different materials, which do not help to protect materials, but could be useful for prediction of risks during design, analysis and maintenance. The values obtained from this interpolation of the maps would be used as a basis for a long-term research work in mapping the state of degradation of various materials in Slovak Republic

Structures and bridges are being designed on the proposed and requested design lifetime of 50 to 100 years. In practice, one can see that the real lifetime of structures and bridges is shorter in many cases, in some special cases extremely shorter. The reasons for the lifetime shortening can be increased of the load cases (e.g., due to traffic on bridges, or due to other uses of a structure), using the material of lower quality, implementation of new standards and codes according to Eurocode replacing older ones. During the whole lifetime the structures must be maintained to fulfil the code requests. If the constructions are not able to fulfil the Ultimate Limit States (ULS) and the Serviceability Limit State (SLS), the structures or bridges have to be strengthened (whole or its elements). The purpose of the paper is the presentation of using a layer of the fibre concrete for a columns’ strengthening. Using the fibre reinforced concrete (FRC) of higher tensile strength makes it possible to increase the load-bearing capacity of the cross-section the column. The contact between the old concrete (core of column) and newly added layer (around column) is very important for using that method of strengthening. In the article, there is also a comparison of the surface modification methods.

Transport infrastructure plays an important role from an economic and management point of view in every country. In developing countries, transport infrastructure has a prominent position in advancing industry and society. Recent developments show that attention should be moved from the design of new structures towards the repair and reconstruction of existing ones to ensure and increase their satisfactory structural reliability and durability. The problem is very urgent because many construction projects, especially transport infrastructure, in most European countries are more than 50–60 years old and require rehabilitations based on objective evaluations. Modified reliability levels for the evaluation of existing bridges were derived on the basis of activities in the department of structures and bridges. The levels are used for determining partial safety factors for resistance depending on the age of the bridge and on its remaining lifetime. New modified reliability levels for the evaluation of existing bridges also affect the partial safety factors for load effects.

Reliability is one of the most significant requirements for structures given in Eurocodes. Thus, the specific level of safety, serviceability, and durability have to be satisfied to fulfill the reliability of structures. In the case of reinforced concrete (RC) members, the corrosion of reinforcement is not assumed in the stage of structure design, which is in contrast with the structures in service, where the corrosion of reinforcement can significantly decrease their diameter ø in time. In these cases, the moment resistance in time M_Rd(t) decreases during the designed lifetime T_d of a structure. The corrosion speed is as a basis for the calculation of moment resistance in time M_Rd(t), i.e., a first-year corrosion rate r_corr and a corrosion model as well. The corrosion itself is a very complicated issue, so the first-year corrosion rate r_corr and also the corrosion model can be different under various conditions in Slovakia. The paper is focused not only to determine the corrosion speed (first-year corrosion rate r_corr and the corrosion model) and parametric study of the moment resistance in time M_Rd(t) under various conditions in Slovakia but also shows an overview on some parameters that may influence the corrosion process.

In the frame of research activities of the Department of structures and bridges, the modified reliability levels for existing bridge evaluation were derived. These levels were used for determining the partial safety factors for materials. Moreover, the partial safety factors of steel and concrete were determined depending on the age of the bridge and on the remaining lifetime of the bridge. New modified reliability levels for evaluation of existing bridges affect also the partial safety factors of loads. In the paper, the modification of reliability levels recommended according to Eurocode for bridge members subjected to bending are presented. These adjusted reliability levels should be used for existing bridge evaluation

The aim of the research was to check the possibility of using the non-destructive method of acoustic emission to assess the condition of concrete without dispersed reinforcement and with various additions of curved steel fibres, during three-point bending. An important aspect of the research proposed in the article is the use of a hybrid method of analysis, which involves complementing the results of strength tests, the results of numerical calculations and the results of strain distributions recorded with a digital image correlation system (DIC System, in this research GOM Suite optical system). The operation of the concrete material under load, depending on the amount of fibres added, is reflected in the recorded acoustic emission (AE) signals. The differences concern the number of signals of individual classes and their distribution over time. The differences exist for both low and high load values, which confirms the possibility of using the acoustic emission method to monitor the condition of the material. It was shown that the numerically determined effective stress levels decreased as the proportion of steel fibres in the concrete increased, while the maximum levels of the first principal stresses increased. During the analyses, a preliminary comparison of the deformation results obtained using the finite element method and the DIC System was also carried out.