A DISCUSSION ON THE IMPORTANCE OF CONSIDERING ENVIRONMENTAL PARAMETERS IN BRAZILIAN REINFORCED CONCRETE BRIDGE AND VIADUCT INSPECTION

The Brazilian highways present a great number of reinforced concrete bridges and viaducts with degradation problems. Besides the privation of financial resources and the abandonment of the structures, the environmental conditions around the structures are also big responsible for the aging of this engineering structures. The environment where a structure is inserted should be considered when evaluations about the causes of the structure degradation are made. It is known that environments with high concentrations of aggressive agents are extremely harmful to reinforced concrete by causes the appearance of pathologies that can take the structure to the collapse if they are not controlled and solved on time. The solution to avoid those problems would be the realization of routine inspections and preventive maintenances in the structures to detect and to avoid the appearance and the development of the pathologies; this solution should be related to the environment where engineering structures are inserted. This paper presents a discussion about the importance of the knowledge of the environmental conditions (environmental parameters) to study the engineering structures degradation, and it will bring a summary of a manual proposed to inspection of reinforced concrete bridges and viaducts, that which take into consideration structural, pathological and environmental aspects related with those special engineering structures. This work seeks to contribute with the conservation of the Brazilian bridges and viaducts and with the reduction of the costs of repair or reconstruction works of those structures.

• INTRODUCTION

• CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT THE BRAZILIAN CLIMATE ASPECTS

• ENVIRONMENTAL PARAMETERS INFLUENCE IN THE CONCRETE STRUCTURES DEGRADATION

• PROPOSAL OF INSPECTION MANUAL TO REINFORCED CONCRETE BRIDGES AND VIADUCTS

• FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

• REFERENCES