The EN Eurocodes are expected to contribute to the establishment and functioning of the internal market for construction products and engineering services by eliminating the disparities that hinder their free circulation within the Community. Further, they are meant to lead to more uniform levels of safety in construction in Europe.
The EN Eurocodes are the reference design codes. After publication of the National Standard transposing the Eurocodes and the National Annexes, all conflicting standards shall be withdrawn.
It is mandatory that the Member States accept designs to the EN Eurocodes
They are currently at the stage of maintenance and evolution in order to address the variety of new methods, new materials, new regulatory requirements and new societal needs developing and to extend harmonisation.
The EN Eurocodes apply to
structural design of buildings and other civil engineering works including:
- geotechnical aspects;
- structural fire design;
- situations including earthquakes, execution and temporary structures.
For the design of special construction works (e.g. nuclear installations, dams, etc) other provisions than those in the EN Eurocodes might be necessary.
The EN Eurocodes cover
- basis of structural design (EN 1990);
- actions on structures (EN 1991);
- the design of concrete (EN 1992), steel (EN 1993), composite steel and concrete (EN1994), timber (EN 1995), masonry (EN 1996) and aluminium (EN 1999) structures; together with
- geotechnical design (EN 1997); and
- the design, assessment and retrofitting of structures for earthquake resistance (EN 1998).
The EN Eurocodes are reference documents
The Member States of the EU and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) recognise that EN Eurocodes serve as reference documents for the following purposes:
- as a means to prove compliance of building and civil engineering works with the basic requirements of the Construction Products Regulation
, particularly Basic Requirement 1 "Mechanical resistance and stability" and Basic Requirement 2 "Safety in case of fire";
- as a basis for specifying contracts for construction works and related engineering services;
- as a framework for drawing up harmonised technical specifications for construction products (ENs and ETAs).