Structural reliability assessment of existing reinforced concrete wharves in NS by considering the impact of climate change

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Reinforced concrete wharves deteriorate with time due to environmental exposure. Design codes account for the deterioration of reinforced concrete in predicting the service life of structures. However, these predictions are based on historical data that do not necessarily account for the projected change in the ocean chemistry and environmental exposure in the shores of Nova Scotia due to Climate Change. The goal of this partnership is to develop a reliability-based robust analytical framework to predict the service life of existing reinforced concrete wharves by considering the impact of the changing environment on the deterioration mechanism of wharf structures, and to apply the developed tool to examine the service life of existing wharves at the Port of Halifax. The proposed tool will account for the spatial variability of the material characteristics (i.e. randomness in the concrete properties in existing wharves), and the stochastic nature of loads (i.e. randomness in the applied loads) through a probabilistic framework of analysis. The tool will be programmed in a user-friendly standalone computer application that can be used by standard engineers. The proposed research has a three-fold impact on Nova Scotia and Canada: understanding the impact of changing environment on the structural safety of wharves helps in proposing new design measures to extend the service life of wharves, and hence, optimize the cost-life analysis of the wharf (economic), quantifying the structural safety of existing wharves helps wharf users in understanding the risk involved in operation (societal), predicting the need for structural repairs helps in optimizing the resources and reduce the carbon footprint associated with wharf rehabilitation projects (environmental).