When two smooth manifold bundles over the same base are fiberwise tangentially homeomorphic, the difference is measured by a homology class in the total space of the bundle. We call this the relative smooth structure class. Rationally and stably, this is a complete invariant. We give a more or less complete and self-contained exposition of this theory.
An important application is the computation of the Igusa-Klein higher Reidemeister torsion invariants of these exotic smooth structures. Namely, the higher torsion invariant is equal to the Poincaré dual of the image of the smooth structure class in the homology of the base. This is proved in the companion paper written by the first two authors.