3 - Impact of climate change on the service life of concrete structures

Abstract

Degradation processes reduce the service life of concrete structures, resulting in social, environmental and economic damage. Many of these processes are closely related to the climate variables of the external environment. Oftentimes, investments for repair and maintenance is required when the durability of a concrete structure is compromised, resulting in high costs for a country’s economy. The main climate variables that interfere with the concrete degradation mechanisms are: temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, wind, waves and tides. The knowledge about the performance of the environmental variables in the degradation mechanisms needs constant updating, mainly due to climatic changes. Climate changes are any changes in weather over time that remain for a long time. This issue has become of great concern in practically all sectors of society, since the consequences of climate changes are already present on the planet Earth. This chapter discusses some effects of climatic variables on concrete durability. Some scenarios of climate change are also discussed. An example of a numerical application about the corrosion of reinforcements on the Brazilian coast is applied. This chapter shows that, mainly in the long term, climate change can contribute to reducing the service life of concrete structures.