Incorporating the Effects of Climate Change into Bridge Deterioration Modeling: The Case of Slab-on-Girder Highway Bridge Deck Designs across Canada
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 32, Issue 7
Abstract
Climate change is expected to impact both the operational and structural performance of infrastructure such as buildings, roads, and bridges. However, infrastructure design guides widely rely on historical climate data, if any, for informing design requirements. The goal of this research was to explore a methodology for modeling bridge deck design against corrosion attack in a changing climate. Three deterioration stages were simulated to understand the time to deck failure. Corrosion initiation of reinforcing steel was considered by utilizing a deterministic diffusion-based model predicting the time to reinforcement corrosion initiation. Crack initiation and crack growth were also simulated using mechanistic approaches to illustrate the sensitivity of bridge deck deterioration and design service life to changes in bridge deck design and a changing climate across major cities in Canada. The findings indicate that a changing climate has the potential to significantly alter the service life of a bridge deck, but the effect is strongly dependent on the durability design of the bridge deck. It is recommended that bridge designers strive to utilize mechanistic-empirical models that incorporate high-resolution climate data as inputs for better understanding changes in deterioration as a consequence of a nonstationary climate.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Items include the following: bridge deck deterioration code in R; climate data; and more detailed figures.
Acknowledgments
This project was funded by Infrastructure Canada under the Climate Resilient Buildings and Core Public Infrastructure Project managed by the National Research Council of Canada.
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Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 32 • Issue 7 • July 2020
Copyright
©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 21, 2019
Accepted: Dec 27, 2019
Published online: Apr 25, 2020
Published in print: Jul 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Sep 25, 2020
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