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The study on damage evaluation induced by atmospheric corrosion of engineering structures has attracted more and more international concern over the past three decades. However, the effects of atmospheric corrosion on reticulated shells have not been systematically investigated. In this regard, the performance assessment of a reticulated shell subjected to atmospheric corrosion damage is actively conducted in this study. The atmospheric corrosion model of shell elements is first presented, and a refined exponential model for estimating the corrosion depth of steel materials is developed by using the pattern recognition technique. The sensitivity of stiffness matrix to element thickness is established by using Euler–Bernoulli beam element. The sensitivity of mass matrix to element thickness is developed based on lumped mass assumption. Then, the expression of natural frequency sensitivity to element thickness and mass is derived by considering the section loss induced by both the inner and outer surface corrosion. In addition, the explicit expression of frequency sensitivity to mass of spherical joints is also established in detail. The nonlinear static structural analysis is conducted to evaluate effects of atmospheric corrosion on the stress of structural elements. A real reticulated shell constructed in northern China is taken as the example structure to examine the feasibility of the proposed approach and to assess the potential damage caused by atmospheric corrosion to the structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]