Fuzzy methodology application for modeling uncertainties in chloride ingress models of RC building structure

Chloride ingress is a common cause of deterioration of reinforced concrete located in coastal zone. Modeling the chloride ingress is an important basis for designing reinforced concrete structures and for assessing the reliability of an existing structure. The modeling is also needed for predicting the deterioration of a reinforced structure. The existing deterministic solution for prediction model of corrosion initiation cannot reflect uncertainties which input variables have. This paper presents an approach to the fuzzy arithmetic based modeling of the chloride-induced corrosion of reinforcement in concrete structures that takes into account the uncertainties in the physical models of chloride penetration into concrete and corrosion of steel reinforcement, as well as the uncertainties in the governing parameters, including concrete diffusivity, concrete cover depth, surface chloride concentration and critical chloride level for corrosion initiation. There are a lot of prediction model for predicting the time of reinforcement corrosion of structures exposed to chloride-induced corrosion environment. In this work, RILEM model formula and Crank's solution of Fick's second law of diffusion is used. The parameters of the models are regarded as fuzzy numbers with proper membership function adapted to statistical data of the governing parameters instead of random variables of probabilistic modeling of Monte Carlo Simulation and the fuzziness of the time to corrosion initiation is determined by the fuzzy arithmetic of interval arithmetic and extension principle. An analysis is implemented by comparing deterministic calculation with fuzzy arithmetic for above two prediction models.