Modelling Climate Change Effects on Bridges in Portugal: A Framework for Temperature and Strain Analysis

Abstract

Climate change poses increasing challenges to infrastructure, particularly bridges, requiring advanced adaptation and monitoring strategies. However, the lack of long-term monitoring data challenges the effective quantification of the impact of climate change on bridges. Therefore, this study presents a methodological framework for reconstructing temperature and strain measurements in a prestressed box girder bridge located in Portugal. The analysis integrates limited historical data from a structural health monitoring system and nearby weather stations, employing temperature downscaling models and advanced statistical techniques, including autoregressive model and long- and short-term time-series networks. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of these models and techniques in capturing temperature variations and assessing the influence of climatic conditions on structural deformations. This study is the beginning of broader analysis on the impact of climate change on concrete bridges