• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.245-253
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• 2009

The importance of chloride ions in the corrosion of steel in concrete has led to the concept for chloride threshold level (CTL). The CTL can be defined as the content of chlorides at the steel depth that is necessary to sustain local passive film breakdown and hence initiate the corrosion process. Despite the importance of the CTL, due to the uncertainty determining the actual limits in various environments for chloride-induced corrosion, conservative values such as 0.4% by weight of cement or 1.2 kg in 1 $m^3$ concrete have been used in predicting the corrosion-free service life of reinforced concrete structures. The paper studies the CTL for blended cement concrete by comparing the resistance of cementitious binder to the onset of chloride-induced corrosion of steel. Mortar specimens were cast with centrally located steel rebar of 10 mm in diameter using cementitious mortars with ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and mixed mortars replaced with 30% pulverized fuel ash (PFA), 60% ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) and 10% silica fume (SF), respectively, at 0.4 of a free W/B ratio. Chlorides were admixed in mixing water ranging 0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0% by weight of binder(Based on $C1^-$). Specimens were curd 28 days at the room temperature, wrapped in polyethylene film to avoid leaching out of chloride and hydroxyl ions. Then the corrosion rate was measured using the polarization resistance method and the order of CTL for binder was determined. Thus, CTL of OPC, 60%GGBS, 30%PFA and 10%SF were determined by 1.6%, 0.45%, 0.8% and 2.15%, respectively.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.47-56
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• 2020

In this study, three levels of W/B(Water to Binder) ratio (0.37, 0.42, 0.47) and substitution ratio of GGBFS (Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag) rate (0 %, 30 %, 50 %) were considered to perform RCPT (Rapid Chloride Diffusion Test) at the 1,095 aged day. Accelerated chloride diffusion coefficient and passed charge of each concrete mixture were assessed according to Tang's method and ASTM C 1202, and improving behaviors of durability performance with increasing aged days are analyzed based on the test results of previous aged days from the preceding study. As the age of concrete increases, the passed charge and diffusion coefficient have been significantly reduced, and especially the concrete specimens containing GGBFS showed a significantly more reduction than OPC(Ordinary Portland Cement) concrete specimen by latent hydraulic activity. In the case of OPC concrete's results of passed charge, at the 1,095 days, two of them were still in the "Moderate" class. So, if only OPC is used as the binder of concrete, the resistance performance for chloride attack is weak. In this study, the time-parameters (m) were derived based on the results of the accelerated chloride diffusion coefficient, and the deterministic and probabilistic analysis for service life were performed by assuming the design variable as a probability function. For probabilistic service life analysis, durability failure probabilities were calculated using Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) to evaluate service life. The service life of probabilistic method were lower than that of deterministic method, since the target value of PDF (Probability of Durability Failure) was set very low at 10 %. If the target value of PDF suitable for the purpose of using structure can be set and proper variability can be considered for each design variable, it is believed that more economical durability design can be made.