By March 2010, the Eurocodes are mandatory for the specification of European public works and are intended to become the de facto standard for the private sector. The Eurocodes therefore replace the existing national building codes published by national standard bodies, although many countries had a period of co-existence. Additionally, each country is expected to issue a National Annex to the Eurocodes which will need referencing for a particular country. At present, take-up of Eurocodes is slow on private sector projects and existing national codes are still widely used by engineers. The motto of the Eurocodes is “Building the future”. The second generation of the Eurocodes is being prepared.
History
In 1975, the Commission of the European Community, decided on an action programme in the field of construction, based on article 95 of the Treaty. The objective of the programme was to eliminate technical obstacles to trade and the harmonisation of technical specifications. Within this action programme, the Commission took the initiative to establish a set of harmonised technical rules for the design of construction works which, in a first would serve as an alternative to the national rules in force in the member states of the European Union and, ultimately, would replace them. For fifteen years, the Commission, with the help of a steering committee with representatives of the member states, conducted the development of the Eurocodes programme, which led to the first generation of European codes in the 1980s. In 1989, the Commission and the member states of the EU and the European Free Trade Association decided, on the basis of an agreement between the Commission and to transfer the preparation and the publication of the Eurocodes to the European Committee for Standardization through a series of mandates, in order to provide them with a future status of European Standard. This links de facto the Eurocodes with the provisions of all the Council's Directives and/or Commission's Decisions dealing with European standards.
List
The eurocodes are published as a separate European Standards, each having a number of parts. By 2002, ten sections have been developed and published:
Each of the codes is divided into a number of Parts covering specific aspects of the subject. In total there are 58 EN Eurocode parts distributed in the ten Eurocodes. All of the EN Eurocodes relating to materials have a Part 1-1 which covers the design of buildings and other civil engineering structures and a Part 1-2 for fire design. The codes for concrete, steel, composite steel and concrete, and timber structures and earthquake resistance have a Part 2 covering design of bridges. These Parts 2 should be used in combination with the appropriate general Parts.
