Why Extreme Summer Temperatures Are Pushing Engineering Limits
As extreme heat strains infrastructure worldwide, CEE Associate Teaching Professor Nancy Varney and Professor Auroop Ganguly emphasize that prolonged spikes in temperature threaten to overwhelm power grids and public transit networks by exceeding baseline engineering parameters.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Hannah Morse. Main photo: A heat wave in Europe exposed risks that extreme heat poses to infrastructure, as seen on this tram in Leipzig, Germany. Photo by: Heiko Rebsch/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
Europe’s heat wave caused roads to buckle. What’s in store for U.S.?
Parts of the U.S. are about to face a heat wave over the July 4 weekend. What the European heat wave shows about potential infrastructure risks.
As a heat wave grips Europe, lingering high temperatures expose the vulnerability of buildings and infrastructure.
Roads in Germany buckled. Trains were canceled in France. People are grappling with how to cool down the buildings that were designed to trap heat in cooler climates.
Meanwhile, large portions of the United States are set to experience their own heat wave with triple-digit temperatures over the July 4 holiday weekend. Can its infrastructure withstand this extreme heat?
Buildings and infrastructure are designed with materials that can handle certain temperature ranges, said Nancy Varney, associate teaching professor in Northeastern University’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. The susceptibility depends on how much exposure they face.
Take bridges, for example. Directly exposed to the elements, they are generally built with strong materials such as steel and concrete that expand with heat and contract with cold temperatures, Varney said. To account for these movements, expansion joints are incorporated into the design.
If temperatures start to exceed what the infrastructure was built to handle, as the world faces increasing and extended spats of high heat, it may cause failures or disruptions.
“We base this on what we’ve seen in design guides and what we could expect,” Varney said of how infrastructure is designed and built. “But as things continue to change, it’s keeping us on our toes.”
Public transportation may take longer to run because of the heat wave, for instance. Since train tracks are fixed, heat can cause them to buckle or warp. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in the Boston area has warned that some trains may run slower to account for heat-related stress on the tracks and that overhead power lines may sag in the hot temperatures.
Extreme heat can also burden power grids with greater demand, hospitals caring for more people with heat-related illnesses or water systems with use and evaporation, said Auroop Ganguly, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Sustainability and Data Sciences Lab.
“Excessive heat waves lasting over days may stress the critical infrastructure and key resources if these heat conditions go significantly beyond design parameters,” he said.
Read full story at Northeastern Global News