• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.67-74
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• 2021

This paper evaluated the structural safety of an aging PSC I-girder bridge with rebar corrosion in the deck. The geometry and rebar of the bridge were designed based on an actual PSC I-girder bridge, and the numerical analysis was performed considering the crack of concrete and yielding of steel rebar. According to the evaluation criteria of Korea Infrastructure Safety and Technology Corporation, this study defined two criteria of rebar exposure and corrosion rates to construct a total of 32 corrosion scenarios. Rebar exposure was defined as the exposure of tensile rebars in the bridge deck due to the removal of cover concrete. The results of the analysis showed that the safety and rating factors of the bridge decreased with increasing rebar exposure and corrosion rates. For the rebar corrosion rate more than 50%, the safety grade of the bridge should be carefully evaluated for all the rebar exposure rate. When the rebar corrosion rate exceeds 57%, the bridge was evaluated as E grade regardless of rebar exposure rate. A correlation analysis for a 2% of rebar exposure rate found that the bridge was evaluated as A grade up to 55.8% corrosion rate, C grade up to 56.9%, D grade up to 58.5%, and E grade for corrosion rate greater than 58.5%. This study indicates the necessity of a quantitative evaluation of rebar corrosion for evaluating the structural safety of aging bridges.