Climate load model – Climate action spectrum for predicting durability of concrete structure

Temperature and moisture content are the main factors that influence concrete carbonization, chloride diffusion, and corrosion rate of reinforced bars placed in concrete. Climate variations can induce the variation of the micro-environment of concrete. Therefore, temperature and relative humidity in the natural climate environment serve as the climate load, and the variations in the micro-environment corresponding to the climate variations are the effect of the climate load. Based on these, the present paper attempts to build climate temperature and relative humidity action spectrums as a climate load model. The climate action spectrums of temperature and relative humidity are built based on meteorological data of the temperature and the relative humidity variations. The effects of sunshine and rain are included in the construction of the action spectrum. Series of tests are conducted under artificially controlled climate environment (ACCE) and natural climate environment (NCE) conditions to support the construction of the spectrum.