Concept of safety

The safety of an infrastructure (ci.e. its ability not to fail) is traditionaly ensured by means of defence barriers.

These barriers are divided up into 2 categories:
  • the passive defence barriers (which are composed of all the structural components of the structure, like the watertightness, the filtration, the drainage, etc.),
  • the active defence barriers (which are composed of the visual inspections, the monitoring, etc.).



It must be ensured that the barriers are adapated to the hazards that may threaten the structure.

This guarantee is obtained by carrying out repetitive diagnosis of the infrastructure (typically every 10 years, or more depending on the class of the structure and, in particular, the impact of its possible ruin on third parties). They consist of reviewing, for each of the known hazards (and including new hazards, such as the increase in the frequency and amplitude of extreme climatic episodes induced by the global warming of the planet earth, rarely taken into account for old structures), the functional character with regard to the hazard in question of the defence barriers implemented to prevent its impact and ensure that its occurrence would not cause a failure damaging the integrity of the structure.


In addition, it must be ensured that the barriers remain permanently operational.

This guarantee is obtained through surveillance, which aims at ensuring that the barriers remain operational between two successive diagnosies. The part of the monitoring that is carried out via instruments and not humans is called monitoring.


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