• Corrosion Science and Technology
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.20-27
• /
• 2014

The structures of reinforced concrete has been extensively increased with rapid development of industrial society. Futhermore, these reinforced concretes are easy to expose to severe corrosive environments such as sea water, contaminated water, acid rain and seashore etc.. Thus, corrosion problem of inner steel bar embedded in concrete is very important in terms of safety and economical point of view. In this study, multiple mortar test specimen(W/C:0.4) with six types having different cover thickness each other was prepared and was immerged in seawater solution for five years to evaluate the effect of cover thickness and immersion years to corrosion property of embedded steel bar. And the polarization characteristics of these embedded steel bars was investigated using electrochemical methods such as measuring corrosion potential, cathodic polarization curve, and cyclic voltammogram. At the beginning of immersion, the corrosion potentials exhibited increasingly nobler values with increasing cover thickness. However, after immersed for 5 years, the thicker cover of thickness, the corrosion potentials shifted in the negative direction, and the relationship between corrosion potential and cover thickness was not in good agreement with each other. Therefore, it is considered that the thinner cover of thickness, corrosive products deposited on the surface of the embedded steel bar plays the role as a resistance polarization which is resulted in decreasing the corrosion rate as well as shifting the corrosion potential in the positive direction. As a result, it seemed that the evaluation which corrosion possibility of the reinforced steel would be estimated by only measuring the corrosion potential may not be a completely desirable method. Therefore, it is suggested that we should take into account various parameters, including cover thickness, passed aged years as well as corrosion potential for more accurate assessment of corrosion possibility of reinforced steel which is exposed to partially or fully in marine environment for long years.

• Advances in concrete construction
• /
• v.12 no.6
• /
• pp.517-525
• /
• 2021

More underground structures are increasingly being constructed such as box culverts for electric power transmission, and the life extension of these structures is very important. It is well known that the steel embedded in concrete is usually invulnerable to corrosion because the high alkalinity of the pore solution in concrete generates a thin protective oxide layer on the surface of the steel. Recent observations in the field and experimental evidence have shown that even steel in concrete can be corroded through the carbonation reaction of cover concrete. Carbonation-induced corrosion in concrete may often occur in a high carbon dioxide environment. In this study, the risk of carbonation of underground box culverts in Korea was evaluated by measuring the car¬bonation rate and concrete cover depth in the field. Then, the carbonation-free service life for the cover depth of the steel was calcu¬lated with in situ information and Monte Carlo simulation. Additionally, an accelerated carbonation test for a cracked beam specimen was performed, and the effect of a crack on the service life of a box culvert was numerically investigated with Monte Carlo simulation based on experimental results.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
• /
• v.11 no.6
• /
• pp.35-46
• /
• 1999

The steel fiber reinforced concrete may affect substantially to the tension stiffening at post cracking behavior. Even if several tension stiffening models exist, they are for plain and normal strength concrete. Thus, the development of tension stiffening models for steel fibrous high strength RC members are necessary at this time when steel fiber reinforced and high strength concretes are common in use. This paper presents tension stiffening effects from experimental results on direct tension members with the main variables such as concrete strength, concrete cover depth, steel fiber quantity and aspect ratio. The comparison of existing models against experimental results indicated that linear reduced model closely estimated the test results at normal strength level but overestimated at high strength level. Discontinuity stress reduced model underestimated at both strength levels. These existing models were not valid enough in applying at steel fibrous high strength concrete because they couldn't consider the concrete strength nor section area. Thus, new tension stiffening models for high strength and steel fiber reinforced concrete were proposed from the analysis of experimental results, considering concrete strength, rebar diameter, concrete cover depth, and steel fiber reinforcement.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.783-792
• /
• 2006

This study investigates developments in a prestressing method using the thermal-expanded cover-plates that increases the load-carrying capacity of structures by installing it on upper or lower flanges in case that huge flexural stiffness according to the increase in span length or load are required of steel structure, such as rolled H-beam or built-up beam. This method applies multi-stepwise contraction forces generated by the contraction of cover plates as prestressing forces after joining the cover plate applied by multi-stepwise thermal expansion that was applied to induce prestressing to structures. To perform a theoretical investigation of the prestressing force applied to a structure due to the thermal expansion and induce a multi-stepwise prestressing method using multi-stepwise thermal distribution, this study proposes a theoretical heat transfer solution for the multi-stepwise thermal distribution of cover plates and analyzes the effect of a multi-stepwise prestressing method using the multi-stepwise thermal expansion.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.79-88
• /
• 2023

In this study, a development of the rust formation arising from steel corrosion was modelled to quantify the structural impact in steel reinforced concrete. The interfacial gap, cover depth and diameter of steel rebar were taken for variables in modelling. It was found that the interfacial gap was the most influencing on the structural limit at steel corrosion, followed by steel diameter and cover depth. At 75 mm of cover depth with 20 mm of the steel diameter, the rust amount to reach cracking accounted for 16.95-27.69 ㎛ to 1-10 ㎛ of the interfacial gap. It was found that there was no risk of cracking and structural limit until the rust was formed within the interfacial gap. With a further formation of rust, the concrete section was successively behaved to yielding, cracking and failure. Additionally, the interfacial gap was the most dominant parameter for the rust amount to reach the cracking of concrete at the interfacial zone, whilst the cover depth had a marginal effect on cracking but had a crucial influence on the rust to failure.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.45-55
• /
• 2017

Stainless steel exhibits high ductility and strain hardening capacity in comparison with carbon steel widely used in constructions. To analyze the particular behaviour of stainless steel cover-plate joints, an experimental study was conducted. It showed large ductility and complex failure modes of the joints. A non-linear finite element model was developed to predict the main parameters influencing the behaviour of these joints. The results of this deterministic model allow us to built a meta-model by using the quadratic response surface method, in order to allow for efficient reliability analysis. This analysis is then applied to the assessment of design formulae in the currently used codes of practice. The reliability analysis has shown that the stainless steel joint design according to Eurocodes leads to much lower failure probabilities than the Eurocodes target reliability for carbon steel, which incites revising the resisting model evaluation and consequently reducing stainless steel joint costs. This approach can be used as a basis to evaluate a wide range of steel joints involving complex failure modes, particularly bearing failure.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.153-158
• /
• 2009

Using non-invasive surface measurement method, the corrosion state of steel embedded inside concrete can be measured by placing four electrodes on the surface of concrete. Modeling of such measurements can provide valuable information as how interfacial impedance between corroded steel and surrounding concrete results in measured impedance on the concrete surface. In this paper, the modeling of surface measurement technique is used for the determination of the sensitivity of the measurements with respect to steel bar size embedded inside concrete and cover thickness. Modeling results indicated that steel bar sizes varied from D10 to D35 could be identified. Concrete cover thickness changes from 0.02 m to 0.1 m was also distinguished using the modeling scheme. The results confirm this modeling technique is capable of determining steel bar sizes and cover thickness, as well as simulating corrosion responses.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.30 no.4
• /
• pp.327-333
• /
• 2016

Reinforced concrete structures have found wide usage in land and maritime applications. However, the corrosion of reinforced concrete has been recognized as a serious problem from economic and safety standpoints. In previous studies, the corrosion behavior of the inner steel bar embedded in mortar (W/C: 0.4, 0.5) was investigated using electrochemical methods. In this study, multiple mortar test specimens (W/C: 0.6) with six different cover thicknesses were prepared and immersed in flowing seawater for five years. Subsequently, equations related to the cover thickness, period of immersion, and corrosion characteristics of the embedded steel bar were evaluated using electrochemical methods. Prior to immersion, the corrosion potentials indicated an increase with increasing cover thickness, and after five years, all corrosion potentials demonstrated a trend in the positive direction irrespective of the cover thickness. However, the relationships between the corrosion potential and cover thickness were not in complete agreement. Furthermore, after five years, all of the corrosion potentials indicated values that were nobler compared to those obtained prior to immersion, and their corrosion current densities also decreased compared to their values obtained prior to immersion. It was considered that the embedded steel bar was easily corroded because of the aggression of water, dissolved oxygen, and chloride ions; a higher W/C ratio also assisted the corrosion process. The corrosive products deposited on the surface of the steel bar for five years cast a resistance polarizing effect shifting the corrosion potential in the nobler direction. Consequently, it was considered that the W/C ratio of 0.6 showed nearly same results as those of W/C of 0.4 and 0.5. Therefore, the corrosion potential as well as various parameters such as the cover thickness, period of immersion, and W/C ratio must be considered at once for a more accurate evaluation of the corrosion property of reinforced steel exposed to marine environment for a long period.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.33 no.6
• /
• pp.849-864
• /
• 2019

One way to achieve sustainable construction is to reduce concrete consumption by use of more sustainable and higher strength concrete. Modern building codes do not cover the use of ultra-high strength concrete (UHSC) in the design of composite structures. Against such background, this paper investigates experimentally the mechanical properties of steel fibre-reinforced UHSC and then the structural behaviors of UHSC encased steel (CES) members under both concentric and eccentric compressions as well as pure bending. The effects of steel-fibre dosage and spacing of stirrups were studied, and the applicability of Eurocode 4 design approach was checked. The test results revealed that the strength of steel stirrups could not be fully utilized to provide confinement to the UHSC. The bond strength between UHSC and steel section was improved by adding the steel fibres into the UHSC. Reducing the spacing of stirrups or increasing the dosage of steel fibres was beneficial to prevent premature spalling of the concrete cover thus mobilize the steel section strength to achieve higher compressive capacity. Closer spacing of stirrups and adding 0.5% steel fibres in UHSC enhanced the post-peak ductility of CES columns. It is concluded that the code-specified reduction factors applied to the concrete strength and moment resistance can account for the loss of load capacity due to the premature spalling of concrete cover and partial yielding of the encased steel section.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
• /
• v.25 no.5
• /
• pp.373-379
• /
• 2016

Low carbon steel is usually used as the outer panel with low base metal resistance compared to the inner reinforced panel made with high strength steel, which makes it difficult to form a robust nugget. To overcome welding problems of a dissimilar three-sheet combination made of SGACEN, DP980 and CP1180, a cover plate was inserted between the upper electrode and SGACEN. The quality of the nugget was analyzed by comparing the welding signals and cross sectional images under maximum heat input both with and without the cover plate. To analyze the mechanical of weld properties, a hardness test analysis was conducted. To enhance the reliability of experimental results, temperature distributions were obtained using a simulation program. The method of inserting a cover plate led to a change in the heat input, which induced a larger nugget size between SGACEN and DP980.