“One Quarter of All Steel Bridges in the US May Fail by 2040”

The report, by Hussam Mahmoud and Susan Palu of Colorado’s Department of Environmental Engineering, modelled the effect of rising temperatures on 90,000 steel bridges across America.

The engineers looked at the effect of inadequate maintenance and increased temperature on bridges’ expansion joints – small components whose failure can lead to structural collapse.

This survey, the first large-scale examination of the effect of neglect and rising temperature on steel bridges, found that there was a widespread danger of failure when joints are clogged with dirt and debris and then exposed to the increased thermal stress caused by climate change, since the clogging would prevent the joint from expanding.