Impacts of Climate Change on the Assessment of Long-Term Structural Reliability
Saini, A., and Tien, I., “Impacts of Climate Change on the Assessment of Long-Term Structural Reliability,” ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Vol. 3, No. 3, September 2017
Abstract — Global climate change has triggered studies across various science and engineering fields. This study demonstrates the need to account for climate change in assessing structural reliability. Civil engineering infrastructure is generally expected to function and serve over decades, and it should be able to withstand the various environmental changes that will occur in its lifetime. The authors study the impacts of climate change on the long-term resistance and loading of infrastructure by using global climate projections through the end of this century. The individual effects on resistance and loading are studied and then aggregated to estimate the projected net structural reliability. These results are compared with those of the case with no climate change to investigate relative effects. Global mean changes in natural hazard events are used to account for changes in loading patterns. The effect on resistance is studied by using time-dependent structural aging through a proposed degradation function accounting for different modes of degradation, including temperature effects, carbonation, corrosion, and fatigue. Global means are used in this study with results that can be applied to the conditions at specific locations for reliability assessment of particular structures. The authors show that seemingly small changes in climate have significant impacts on long-term structural reliability.
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