From the 2012 revision, “General Principles” was compiled as a new Specification of JSCE Standard Specifications for Concrete Structures, which consists of five chapters.

In Chapter 1; General Rule”, aim and application range of each Specification of Standard Specification for Concrete Structures, i.e. “General Principles”, “Design”, “Materials and Construction”, “Maintenance”, “Dam Concrete”, and “Test Methods and Specifications”, are described, as well as the social role of concrete structures. It is mentioned in the chapter that, “in order to build reliable concrete structures that contribute to the society, required performance of the target concrete structures should be clarified, and at the same time, each task at every phase of planning, design, construction, and maintenance should be executed with appropriate procedure to ensure it.”

In Chapter 2; scheme of Standard Specifications for Concrete Structures and correspondence with each Specification”, roles and correlation between “Design”, “Materials and Construction”, and “Maintenance” are explained, and workflow and collaboration are overviewed,.

In Chapter 3; ensuring performance of concrete structures”, how to ensure the required performance of concrete structures is described. It is described in the chapter how important it is to follow policies defined at planning, to present principles to ensure the predetermined performance at the phases of design, construction and maintenance, and to go through the process cooperating each other and making sure to pass the important information from one phase to the next.

Also, in order to go through the process smoothly and without rework, it is important to clarify the responsibility of engineers at every phase, and at the same time to allocate right person having enough power to meet the responsibility. Thus, in Chapter 4; role of engineers”, importance of appropriate allocation of engineers is described as well as role of engineers at each phase.

In order to achieve the sustainable development of the society, it is necessary to clarify policies for the environment on construction of concrete structures. In this revised edition of the Standard Specification for Concrete Structures, “environmental effect” is newly defined as a performance of concrete structures, and its fundamental idea is described in the Chapter 5; environmental effect of concrete structures”.

During the editing work of “General Rule”, quite many discussions were undertaken to consider setting a chapter for “environmental effect” and describing the idea of environmental effect on concrete structures. Needless to say, it is important to give environmental considerations to a concrete structure during its whole service life. However, the methods to study and objectify it could not be reached to enough consensuses during the editing work of “General Rule”. Therefore, in the 2012 revision of Standard Specifications for Concrete Structures, its description was confined to overall ideas of environmental considerations to the concrete structures during their service lives, which were put in the “General Rule”. As for the descriptions related to environment in other Specifications, importance of environmental consideration was described in the commentary of related parts just as the previous edition.

1. Fundamental principles
1.1 General
1.2 Scope
1.3 Roles of concrete structures
1.4 Definitions

2. System of the standard specifications and linkage between components)
2.1 General
2.2 Linkage between tasks in design, construction and maintenance phases

3. Performance assurance of concrete structures
3.1 General
3.2 Performance requirements
3.3 Basics for performance assurance of existing concrete structures

4. Roles of engineers
4.1 General
4.2 Roles of engineers in design phase
4.3Roles of engineers in maintenance phase
4.4 Cooperation among engineers toward performance assurance

5. Concrete structures and environment
5.1 General
5.2 Environmental considerations