Concrelife: A Software to Solve the Chloride Penetration in Saturated and Unsaturated Reinforced Concrete

Abstract

This paper presents new software (Concrelife) capable of reliably simulating chloride ions penetration in reinforced concrete from different environments in the most common 1-D rectangular geometry scenarios. Its numerical solution is obtained from the simulation of models whose structure is based on Network Simulation Method. These models are generated by the program itself and run in the powerful free code NgSpice. The mathematical model of the problem includes the formation of bound chloride, precipitated chloride, reduction of porosity, saturated and unsaturated conditions, etc. All this allows tackling all kinds of scenarios, such as successive changes in concentration and temperature at the boundary, wet-drying cycles, washing of structures, etc. Concrelife has been developed with a pleasant window environment, intuitive and easy for a user not expert in numerical techniques, both for the introduction of data and for the graphic representation of the results, which include the spatial and temporal concentration of all species of chloride, porosity, water content in pores etc. To test and verify the results of the software, applications are presented to real scenarios.