Life Cycle Modeling of Corrosion Affected Concrete Structures—Initiation

Abstract

Control and monitoring of reinforcement corrosion in concrete is of significant practical importance if premature failure of reinforced concrete structures is to be prevented. The detection of the initiation of reinforcement corrosion in concrete marks the beginning of whole life performance assessment for reinforced concrete structures. This paper attempts to present the concept of whole life performance assessment for structures and apply it to reinforced concrete structures located in a marine environment. Models used in the whole life assessment are developed and their statistics derived. A merit of the developed models is that they are derived from data representing concrete structures in real service conditions. The emphasis of the paper is to develop a reliability-based method to estimate the initiation time of reinforcement corrosion in concrete structures. This method can equip structural engineers and asset managers with confidence in decision making in regard to the maintenance and repairs of corroded reinforced concrete structures. It has been shown in the paper that the initiation time for reinforcement corrosion in concrete structures located in a marine environment is negligibly short for the service life consideration.