Abstract
Based on fractal theory and damage mechanics, the aim of this paper is to describe the monofractal and multifractal characteristics of corrosion morphology and develop a new approach to characterize the nonuniform corrosion degree of reinforcing bars. The relationship between fractal parameters and tensile strength of reinforcing bars are discussed. The results showed that corrosion mass loss ratio of a bar cannot accurately reflect the damage degree of the bar. The corrosion morphology of reinforcing bars exhibits both monofractal and multifractal features. The fractal dimension and the tensile strength of corroded steel bars exhibit a power function relationship, while the width of multifractal spectrum and tensile strength of corroded steel bars exhibit a linear relationship. By comparison, using width of multifractal spectrum as multifractal damage variable not only reflects the distribution of corrosion damage in reinforcing bars, but also reveals the influence of nonuniform corrosion on the mechanical properties of reinforcing bars. The present research provides a new approach for the establishment of corrosion damage constitutive models of reinforcing bars.
Highlights
The degradation of construction materials due to corrosion is of great concern for national economic development
Based on fractal theory and damage mechanics, the aim of this paper is to describe the monofractal and multifractal characteristics of corrosion morphology and develop a new approach to characterize the nonuniform corrosion degree of reinforcing bars
The complexity of the corrosion morphology increase generally with the increase of corrosion mass loss ratio, which indicating the damage degree of steel bars increase with increasing disorder
Summary
The degradation of construction materials due to corrosion is of great concern for national economic development. The most important durability issue with concrete structure is deterioration due to reinforcing bar corrosion [1]. Considerable research work has been carried out on the deterioration of mechanical properties of corroded steel bars. While characterizing the corrosion degree of steel bars, most of the available studies adopt the index of corrosion mass loss ratio (denoted as S) [2,3,4,5]. While corrosion mass loss ratio does not account for the nonuniform distribution of pitting corrosion. Given the same amount of mass loss in steel bars, localized corrosion seems to be a more dangerous damage type compared to uniform corrosion owing to more localized failure that brings about catastrophic fracture [6]. How to quantitatively describe the corrosion characteristic and corresponding damage evolution are problems of current research
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