from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
The mechanical and corrosion properties of weathering steel had been deeply studied in 70 and 80 ties of last century. In this period a lot of structure was built in the Czech Republic. The paper analysis the stage of the existing steel structures made from weathering steels exposed for long-term period in various environments and evaluation of the specific corrosion stress in areas which may affect service life of structures, microclimatic parameters of structures and defect and failure causes. The forming of protective patina layer, initial corrosion rate and other characteristics of weathering steels will be analysed in significantly changed conditions of atmospheric environments in the Czech Republic and in Europe too. As the corrosivity of atmosphere significantly changed during 1995-2005 the corrosion rate was reduced. Paper performed a new data of corrosion rate and comparison of change of weathering steel samples exposed in atmospheric test sites and real bridge structure. The effect of steel structure design was studied too.
Keywords: weathering steel, properties, corrosion rate© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.