• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.16 no.6
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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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• v.61 no.6
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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.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.641-646
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• 2000

This paper describes an experimental investigation on the influence of concrete cover thickness on tension stiffening behavior. Total 36 direct tension specimens were tested with variation of cover thickness. Three different concrete compressive strengths were also considered. After cracking, as the cover thickness becomes thinner and the concrete strength becomes higher, tensile stiffness is decreased. Thereby an increase in cover thickness results in increase of the tensile cracking load and tension stiffening effect. Also the increase in concrete strength results in sudden decrease in tension stiffening effect. Hence, the cover thickness and concrete strength are proved to be important factors in tension stiffening behavior.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.771-774
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• 1999

This study was carried out to quantitatively investigate the amount of corrosion at the time of onset of cracks in cover concrete due to rebar corrosion. In this experiments, the accelerated galvanostatic corrosion method was carried out. FEM analyses were also conducted to investigate the expansive behaviors due to rebar corrosion and the mechanical properties of corrosion products. As a result, it was concluded that the corrosion ratio at the time of onset of cracks in cover concrete was 3% by weight. The onset of cracks in cover concrete due to rebar corrosion could be analyzed by the finite element method.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.63 no.1
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• pp.55-64
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• 2017

The paper concerns concrete carbonation, the phenomena that occurs in every type of climate, especially in urban-industrial areas. In European Standards, including Eurocode (EC) for concrete structures the demanded durability of construction located in the conditions of the carbonation threat is mainly assured by the selection of suitable thickness of reinforcement cover. According to EC0 and EC2, the thickness of the cover in the particular class of exposure depends on the structural class/category and concrete compressive strength class which is determined by cement content and water-cement ratio (thus the quantitative composition) but it is not differentiated for various cements, nor additives (i.e., qualitative composition), nor technological types of concrete. As a consequence the selected thickness of concrete cover is in fact a far estimation - sometimes too exaggerated (too safe or too risky). The paper presents the elaborated "self-terminated carbonation model" that includes abovementioned factors and enables to indicate the maximal possible depth of carbonation. This is possible because presented model is a hyperbolic function of carbonation depth in time (the other models published in the literature use the parabolic function that theoretically assume the infinite increase of carbonation depth value). The paper discusses the presented model in comparison to other models published in the literature, moreover it contains the algorithm of concrete cover design with use of the model as well as an example of calculation of the cover thickness.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.323-326
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• 2005

Uniaxial tension test of Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) bar reinforced concrete prisms was performed. The objective was to investigate the adequate cover thickness of the GFRP rebars. The tension stiffening effect of GFRP bar reinforced concrete was also studied. The test variables included rebar types (conventional steel rebar and two different GFRP rebars) and cover thicknesses (five different cover thicknesses ranging between 1-3db). Normal strength concrete was used. Cracking patterns on concrete surface and cracking loads were careful1y observed during the direct tensile test. The test results indicated that the adequate cover thickness of the GFRP rebars may even be larger than that of the steel rebars and that the cover thickness of 2db commonly specified for the GFRP rebars may not be large enough. The tension stiffening effect of the GFRP rebars was also quantified and documented from the test results.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.3 no.2_3
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• pp.145-161
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• 2006

This article involves architecting prototype-fuzzy expert system for designing the nominal cover thickness by means of fuzzy inference for quantitatively representing the environment affecting factor to reinforced concrete in chloride-induced corrosion environment. In this work, nominal cover thickness to reinforcement in concrete was determined by the sum of minimum cover thickness and tolerance to that defined from skill level, constructability and the significance of member. Several variables defining the quality of concrete and environment affecting factor (EAF) including relative humidity, temperature, cyclic wet and dry, and the distance from coast were treated as fuzzy variables. To qualify EAF the environment conditions of cycle degree of wet-dry, relative humidity, distance from coast and temperature were used as input variables. To determine the nominal cover thickness a qualified EAF, concrete grade, and watercement ratio were used. The membership functions of each fuzzy variable were generated from the engineering knowledge and intuition based on some references as well as some international codes of practice.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.103-110
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• 2009

Concrete carbonation is a cause of problems in concrete structures, so it needs to be estimated. And concrete cover is designed to protect structures from this damaging. Usually the cover thickness is considered based on the limit states design codes in which the important target is the reliability safety index. However, it is not clear that whether the safety index determined is optimal or not with respect to the cost. The codes are mainly proceeded quantitatively (i.e. making a safe structure) while the economic aspects are only considered qualitatively. So the reliability-based design considering life cycle cost (LCC) is called for, and here the focus is on the advanced analysis solution to optimize the reliability safety regarding LCC.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.7 no.4
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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.

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