• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.443-453
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• 2003

The diffusivity of carbon dioxide in concrete is very important in that it directly affects the degree of carbonation in concrete structures. The purpose of the present study is to explore the diffusivity of carbon dioxide and to derive a realistic equation to estimate the diffusion coefficient of carbon dioxide in concrete. For this purpose, several series of concrete specimens have been tested. Major test variables were the water-cement ratios. The total porosities and the diffusion coefficients of carbon dioxide were measured for the specimens. The present study indicates that the measured porosities agree well with the calculated ones. The effects of porosity and relative humidity on the diffusion coefficient of carbon dioxide were examined. A prediction equation to estimate the diffusion coefficient of carbon dioxide was derived and proposed in this study. The proposed equation shows reasonably good correlation with test data on the $CO_2$ diffusion coefficient of concrete

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.335-343
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• 2010

Steel corrosion in reinforced concrete (RC) structures is a critical problem to structural safety and many researches are being actively conducted on developing methods to maintain the required performance of the RC structures during their intended service lives. In this study, concrete mixture proportioning technique through genetic algorithm (GA) for RC structures under carbonation, which is considered to be serious in underground site and big cities, is investigated. For this, mixture proportions and diffusion coefficients of $CO_2$ from the previous researches were analyzed and fitness function for $CO_2$ diffusion coefficient was derived through regression analysis. This function based on the 12 experimental results consisted of 5 variables including water-cement ratio (W/C), cement content, sand percentage, coarse aggregate content per unit volume of concrete in unit, and relative humidity. Through genetic algorithm (GA) technique, simulated mixture proportions were proposed for 3 cases of verification and they showed reasonable results with less than relative error of 10%. Finally, assuming intended service life, different exposure conditions, design parameters, intended $CO_2$ diffusion coefficients, and cement contents were determined and related mixture proportions were simulated. This proposed technique is capable of suggesting reasonable mix proportions and can be modified based on experimental data which consider various mixing components like mineral admixtures.