Modelling of corrosion damage for metal structures

The durability of metal structures is strongly influenced by damage due to atmospheric corrosion, whose control is a key aspect for design and maintenance of both new constructions and historical buildings. Nevertheless, only general provisions are given in European codes to prevent the effects of corrosion during lifetime of metal structures. In particular, design guidelines such as Eurocode 3 do not provide models for the evaluation of corrosion depth which are able to predict the rate of thickness loss as a function of different influencing parameters. In this paper, a report is presented on the modelling approaches of atmospheric corrosion damage of metal structures which are available in both ISO standards and the literature. A comparison among the selected degradation models is shown in order to evaluate the possibility of developing a general approach to the evaluation of thickness loss due to corrosion.