Effect of Climate Change in the Deterioration of a Berthing Structure in a Tropical Environment

The coastal infrastructures are generally designed for 50 years or more, but often, these structures lose the functionality and need repair or retrofit within its design life. It may be due to the damage or deterioration of the concrete or embedded reinforcement. The structures are usually designed for environmental loads, but the structure is subjected to early deterioration due to the change in climate over the years. In this paper, an attempt is made to understand the effect of climate change in the rapid deterioration of structure using the non-destructive test measurements and well-established models. The study was conducted on a berthing structure located in the backwaters along the west coast of India. The deterioration of coastal structures is mainly of chloride-induced or carbonation. Both these processes depend upon parameters like temperature, relative humidity, CO2 concentration, and rainfall, etc., which in turn, changes with change in the climate. It is found from the study that the effect of climate change is present in the deterioration of the berthing structure. The concentration of chlorides and the carbonation are found to be more than that due to the natural processes of aging.