Monitoring Environmental and Climatic Exposure Conditions for Structures in Cold Regions

Abstract

The durability of structures is greatly affected by their level of exposure to environmental and climatic conditions. In the case of northern structures, a major factor of deterioration is the corrosion of reinforcing steel due to the ingress of chloride ions from deicing salts during the winter season. The rate of penetration of chloride ions is a function of the properties of the concrete and exposure conditions, which can be direct (e.g., ponding on a slab), by splashing (e.g., on parapets), and by mist. Several models have been proposed to model the ingress of chloride ions for each mode of exposure; however, many assumptions are required for boundary conditions at the surface of concrete elements given the current state of knowledge. The objective of this research is to address these issues through the development of a custom meteorological station and measuring devices that can be deployed near existing structures. In this article, the station and its measuring devices are described, and typical data collected for one winter season are described.