Structures in a Changing Climate

Structures in a changing climate highlights the effect of uncontrolled pollution, by human activities, on the environment. The book explains the processes leading to the corrosion of a typical steel structure subject to pollution from substances in the air, that arises from both natural and man-made pollutants.It is explained in two stages: Stage one where pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide, chloride, etc are identified and quantified including their effect on materials. The reaction of the above air quality parameters with climate change parameters such as temperature, relative humidity, precipitation is analyzed through dose-response functions from several researchers, leading to the estimation of corrosion losses in steel structures. The second stage of the work used the estimated corrosion loss to determine their effect on a typical railway bridge loading in terms of moment of resistance and shear resistance. From the results, it is determined that overtime, increasing pollutant loading on the environment will cause failure of structures except this phenomenon is built into the design stage and carried out through proper maintenance.