How can climate change impact the health of our bridges?

How can climate change impact the health of our bridges?

In March took place the kickoff meeting of the ClimaBridge Project – Impact of climate change on the structural health of bridges.

The goal of this project is to develop a systematic framework for the probabilistic assessment of the impact of climate change on the structural health of existing bridges, by coupling climate risk evaluation and health monitoring techniques.

Basically, we intend to integrate existing procedures for the assessment of climate change threats into the Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of bridges, leading to a climate-aware SHM framework.

Additionally, this project intends to present the latest technological updates on the SHM of bridges to the scientific community, technical staff of consultancy companies and public entities in Portugal and Norway, as well as to promote technological advances and business initiatives around the life-cycle management of bridges.

Various activities are planned under the ClimaBridge Project, namely:

  • two three-day workshops (Lisbon and Oslo)
  • a joint course on SHM
  • long-term monitoring of an existing railway bridge
  • several scientific meetings and
  • a one-day conference.

 

Promoter Entity: COFAC – Lusofona University
Coordinator: Eloi Figueiredo
Partners: Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet), Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP) and Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil (LNEC)