Corrosion Analysis of RCC Beam using Simplified FEM Model

Abstract

The durability of the reinforced concrete structures highly influenced by many important factors including steel corrosion. Corrosion starts off with the availability of the water and oxygen, products formed due to this get deposited in the interface between the concrete and steel. As the depositing corrosion volume increases, an expansive pressure at the interface exerts on the surrounding concrete and eventually causes structural degradation, which reduces concrete and steel bond. This work focuses on a parametric study on rust expansion pressure to understand the effect of grade of concrete, diameter of the rebar, position of the rebar and c/d ratio using ABAQUS software. After the analysis, it is found that rust expansion pressure increases as the grade of concrete and c/d ratio increases, which means the pressure required to cause surface cracks due to corrosion is more in higher grades concrete and high c/d ratio. Position of the bar did not affect the corrosion pressure requirement to cause surface cracks. As the corrosion level increased, deflection of the beam also increased. But position of the corroded reinforcing bars in the beam slightly affects the deflection of the beam.