American Standard A588 Bridge Weathering Steel Manufacturer

Weathering steel, weathering steel for bridges, American standard A588 weathering steel for bridges. In harsh environmental conditions, road bridges must operate safely and economically for many years. Steel highway bridge structural elements corrode, reducing thickness and increasing stress on load-bearing members. Therefore, highway bridges must be designed to mitigate the long-term effects of corrosion.

Mitigation methods include painting and the use of weathering steel grades and high performance weathering steel, which must be maintained for the projected life of the bridge, with paint and other surface treatments. Costs associated with maintenance are a heavy burden on bridge owners, and the life cycle costs of painted bridges can be significantly higher than maintenance-free weathering steel bridges.

Weathering steel requires no maintenance corrosion protection in most environments. However, the corrosion rate of weathering steel may be unsatisfactory under severe service conditions because protective patina does not form on the steel surface. In this hostile environment, conventional weathering steel does not provide adequate corrosion resistance.

Conventional and high-performance weathering steels perform well unless exposed to prolonged wet conditions and where chlorides naturally deposit on the steel (i.e. in coastal areas) or in snow belt areas where deicing salts are heavily used. The reasons for this behavior are related to weathering The formation or absence of a protective oxide or oxyhydroxide layer on the steel surface.

Forming such a layer on weathering steel requires frequent drying so that nanophase goethite can form in the absence of moisture. Nanophase goethite constitutes the main impermeable layer on weathering steel. The presence of an unknown level of chloride in the hydroxide surface layer inhibits the formation of nanophase goethite in favor of hematite and/or maghemite formation. This is why coastal and deicing salt environments are not happy with weathering steel.