• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제61권6호
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• pp.693-700
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• 2017

Concrete cover cracking due to the corrosion of steel reinforcing bars is one of the main causes of deterioration in Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures. The oxidation level of the bars causes varying levels of expansion. The rebar expansions could lead to through-thickness cracking of the concrete cover, where depending on the cracking characteristics, the service life of the structures would be affected. In this paper, the effect of geometrical and material parameters, i.e., concrete cover thickness, reinforcing bar diameter, and concrete tensile strength, on the required pressure for concrete cover cracking due to corrosion has been investigated through detailed numerical simulations. ABAQUS finite element software is employed as a modeling platform where the concrete cracking is simulated by means of eXtended Finite Element Method (XFEM). The accuracy of the numerical simulations is verified by comparing the numerical results with experimental data obtained from the literature. Using a previously proposed empirical equation and the numerical model, the time from corrosion initiation to the cover cracking is predicted and then compared to the respective experimental data. Finally, a parametric study is undertaken to determine the optimum ratio of the rebar diameter to the reinforcing bars spacing in order to avoid concrete cover delamination.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제16권6호
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• pp.749-769
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• 2003

The structural deterioration of concrete structures due to reinforcement corrosion is a major worldwide problem. Service life of the age-degraded concrete structures is governed by the protective action provided by the cover concrete against the susceptibility of the reinforcement to the corrosive environment. The corrosion of steel would result in the various corrosion products, which depending on the level of the oxidation may have much greater volume than the original iron that gets consumed by the process of corrosion. This volume expansion would be responsible for exerting the expansive radial pressure at the steel-concrete interface resulting in the development of hoop tensile stresses in the surrounding cover concrete. Once the maximum hoop tensile stress exceeds the tensile strength of the concrete, cracking of cover concrete would take place. The cracking begins at the steel-concrete interface and propagates outwards and eventually resulting in the through cracking of the cover concrete. The cover cracking would indicate the loss of the service life for the corrosion-affected structures. In the present paper, analytical models have been developed considering the residual strength of the cracked concrete and the stiffness provided by the combination of the reinforcement and expansive corrosion products. The problem is modeled as a boundary value problem and the governing equations are expressed in terms of the radial displacement. The analytical solutions are presented considering a simple 2-zone model for the cover concrete viz. cracked or uncracked. A sensitivity analysis has also been carried out to show the influence of the various parameters of the proposed models. The time to cover cracking is found to be function of initial material properties of the cover concrete and reinforcement plus corrosion products combine, type of rust products, rate of corrosion and the residual strength of the cover concrete. The calculated cracking times are correlated against the published experimental and analytical reference data.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제30권6호
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• pp.713-732
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• 2008

Serviceability and durability of the concrete members can be seriously affected by the corrosion of steel rebar. Carbonation front and or chloride ingress can destroy the passive film on rebar and may set the corrosion (oxidation process). Depending on the level of oxidation (expansive corrosion products/rust) damage to the cover concrete takes place in the form of expansion, cracking and spalling or delamination. This makes the concrete unable to develop forces through bond and also become unprotected against further degradation from corrosion; and thus marks the end of service life for corrosion-affected structures. This paper presents an analytical model that predicts the weight loss of steel rebar and the corresponding time from onset of corrosion for the known corrosion rate and thus can be used for the determination of time to cover cracking in corrosion affected RC member. This model uses fully the thick-walled cylinder approach. The gradual crack propagation in radial directions (from inside) is considered when the circumferential tensile stresses at the inner surface of intact concrete have reached the tensile strength of concrete. The analysis is done separately with and without considering the stiffness of reinforcing steel and rust combine along with the assumption of zero residual strength of cracked concrete. The model accounts for the time required for corrosion products to fill a porous zone before they start inducing expansive pressure on the concrete surrounding the steel rebar. The capability of the model to produce the experimental trends is demonstrated by comparing the model's predictions with the results of experimental data published in the literature. The effect of considering the corroded reinforcing steel bar stiffness is demonstrated. A sensitivity analysis has also been carried out to show the influence of the various parameters. It has been found that material properties and their inter-relations significantly influence weight loss of rebar. Time to cover cracking from onset of corrosion for the same weight loss is influenced by corrosion rate and state of oxidation of corrosion product formed. Time to cover cracking from onset of corrosion is useful in making certain decisions pertaining to inspection, repair, rehabilitation, replacement and demolition of RC member/structure in corrosive environment.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제56권2호
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• pp.257-273
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• 2015

Numerical value of correlation between effective parameters in the strength of a structure is as important as its stochastic properties in determining the safety of the structure. In this article investigation is made about the variation of coefficient of correlation between effective parameters in corrosion initiation time of reinforcement and the time of concrete cover cracking in reinforced concrete (RC) structures. Presence of many parameters and also error in measurement of these parameters results in uncertainty in determination of corrosion initiation and the time to crack initiation. In this paper, assuming diffusion process as chloride ingress mechanism in RC structures and considering random properties of effective parameters in this model, correlation between input parameters and predicted time to corrosion is calculated using the Monte Carlo (MC) random sampling. Results show the linear correlation between corrosion initiation time and effective input parameters increases with increasing uncertainty in the input parameters. Diffusion coefficient, concrete cover, surface chloride concentration and threshold chloride concentration have the highest correlation coefficient respectively. Also the uncertainty in the concrete cover has the greatest impact on the coefficient of correlation of corrosion initiation time and the time of crack initiation due to the corrosion phenomenon.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• 제7권4호
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• pp.203-210
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• 2019

Concrete structures in marine environment are susceptible to chloride attack, where chloride diffusion results in the corrosion of steel bar and further lead to the cracking of concrete cover. This process causes structural deterioration and affects the response of concrete structures to different forms of loading. This paper presents the use of ABAQUS Finite Element Software in simulating the processes involved in concrete's structural degradation from chloride diffusion to steel corrosion and concrete cover cracking. Fick's law was used for the chloride diffusion, while the mass loss from steel corrosion was obtained using Faraday's law. Pressure generated by steel corrosion product at the concrete-steel interface was modeled by applying uniform radial displacements, while concrete smeared cracking alongside the Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM) was used for concrete cover cracking simulation. Results show that, chloride concentration decreases with penetration depth, but increases with exposure time at the concrete-steel interface. Cracks initiate and propagate in the concrete cover as pressure caused by the steel corrosion product increases. Furthermore, the crack width increases with the exposure time on the surface of the concrete.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제20권5호
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• pp.573-582
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• 2017

Chloride-induced cover cracking will aggravate the performance deterioration for RC structures under the chlorideladen environment, which may endanger the safety of structures and occupants. Traditional design method cannot ensure that a definite performance is satisfied. To overcome the defects, a study on the performance-based design method was carried out in this paper. Firstly, the limit state functions were established for the corrosion initiation and cover cracking. Thereafter, the uncertainty analysis was performed to study the effects of random factors on the time-dependent performances. Partial factor formulae were deduced through the first-order reliability method for performance verification. Finally, an illustrative example was presented and the sensitivity of cover depth to other parameters was carried out. It is found that the uncertainties of the random variables have great effects on the required cover depth. It is demonstrated that the performance-based design method can ensure that the target performance can be satisfied and support to formulate a rational maintenance and repair strategy for RC structures under the chloride environment.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제54권2호
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• pp.319-336
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• 2015

Life cycle performance of corrosion affected RC structures is an important and challenging issue for effective infrastructure management. The accurate condition assessment of corroded RC structures mainly depends on the effective evaluation of deterioration occurring in the structures. Structural performance deterioration caused by reinforcement corrosion is a complex phenomenon which is generally uncertain and non-decreasing. Therefore, a stochastic modelling such as the gamma process can be an effective tool to consider the temporal uncertainty associated with performance deterioration. This paper presents a time-dependent reliability analysis of corrosion affected RC structures associated bond strength degradation. Initially, an analytical model to evaluate cracking in the concrete cover and the associated loss of bond between the corroded steel and the surrounding cracked concrete is developed. The analytical results of cover surface cracking and bond strength deterioration are examined by experimental data available. Then the verified analytical results are used for the stochastic deterioration modelling, presented here as gamma process. The application of the proposed approach is illustrated with a numerical example. The results from the illustrative example show that the proposed approach is capable of assessing performance of the bond strength of concrete structures affected by reinforcement corrosion during their lifecycle.

• 한국콘크리트학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국콘크리트학회 2003년도 봄 학술발표회 논문집
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• pp.693-698
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• 2003

Corrosion of reinforcement and deterioration of concrete short the lifetime of reinforced concrete structure and affect the safety of the structure. In particular, the corrosion of reinforcement causing the inner pressure of the interface between the concrete and reinforcement is known to significantly contribute to the premature deterioration of concrete structure. Several attempts have been made to predict the cracking time of the concrete structure. However, problems such as the lack of reproducibility of concrete tests and non-uniformity of materials have hampered thess kinds of studies. Thus, the mechanism of the concrete cracking due to reinforcement corrosion is in the way. This studymeasured the mechanical properties of corrosion products using the nano-indentation test method. Likewise, the critical thickness of corrosion products for the cracking of concrete cover was investigated using the finite element and experimental methods.

• 한국콘크리트학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국콘크리트학회 2006년도 추계 학술발표회 논문집
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• pp.613-616
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• 2006

The purpose of the this study of to define the critical corrosion amount of the steel cause the cracking of concrete cover. The major variables of the critical corrosion amount are concrete strength and thick of the concrete cover. In this experiment, the constant of stress concentration is added by a new variable. As a result of the experiment, it is confirmed to less decrease in the critical corrosion amount following the constants of stress concentration increased. Besides, electric currents were measured through a generator of constant voltage. When connecting constant voltage with corrosion circuit, it was discovered that magnitude of the change come out similarly between displacement on the concrete cover and electric current according to time.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• 제4권3호
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• pp.100-107
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• 2005

Reinforcing steel bars in reinforced concrete structures are protected from corrosion by passive film on the steel surface inside concrete with high alkalinity. However, when the passive film breaks down due to chloride ion ingressed into the RC structures, a corrosion initiates at the surface of steel bars. Then, internal pressure by volume expansion of corrosion products in reinforcing bars induces cracking and spalling of cover concrete, which reduces not only durability performance but also structural performance in RC structures. In this paper, a service life prediction of RC structures is carried out by using a micro-mechanics based corrosion model. The corrosion model is composed of a chloride penetration model to evaluate the initiation of corrosion and an electric corrosion cell model and an oxygen diffusion model to evaluate the rate and the accumulated amounts of corrosion. Then, a corrosion cracking model is combined to the models to evaluate critical amount of corrosion product for initiation cracking in cover concrete. By implementing the models into a finite element analysis program, a time and space dependent corrosion analysis and a service life prediction of RC structures due to chloride attack are simulated and the results of the analysis are compared with test results. The effect of crack width on the corrosion and the service life of the RC structures are analyzed and discussed.