Corrosion-induced cracking of recycled aggregate concrete beams under static load

Abstract

To investigate the corrosion-induced cracking (CIC) of recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) beams under static load, 12 RAC beams with three different types of recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) replacement ratios were prepared and tested under four static load levels (SLLs). The test results showed that the area of CIC on the tension surface of the beams firstly increased when the SLL was increased from 0 to 0.2Mux (Mux is the flexural bearing capacity of control beam), decreased as the SLL was increased from 0.2Mux to 0.4Mux and then increased until the SLL reached 0.6Mux. The maximum width of longitudinal corrosion cracks had a strong linear relationship with the duration of corrosion and tended to increase with SLL and RCA replacement ratio. The lognormal distribution satisfactorily described the probability distribution of the width of longitudinal corrosion cracks. For the beams tested under a larger SLL, the degree of scatter of the crack width tended to increase and the shape of the probability distribution curve tended to be flat. The research results should be helpful in improving the durability design theory of RAC beams under load and play an important role in promoting engineering applications of RAC beams.