Novel Approach Towards Calculation of Averaged Activation Energy Based on Arrhenius Plot for Predicting the Effect of Temperature on Chloride Induced Corrosion of Steel in Concrete

Abstract

Abstract Reinforced concrete structures exposed to aggressive environments such as severe chloride attack coupled with high temperature suffer from accelerated corrosion. The objective of this paper is to model and verify the effect of temperature on chloride induced corrosion potential and corrosion rate of steel in concrete by incorporating a novel approach towards calculation of averaged activation energy based on Arrhenius plot. This paper presents a semiempirical corrosion modeling approach which obeys the basic corrosion science laws and is also verified by the experimentation involving a wide range of chloride and temperature variations (0 %–10 % total chlorides and 20–60°C temperatures). The modeling task has been incorporated by the use of a concrete durability model developed by our research group at the University of Tokyo as a computational platform on which the coupled temperature-chloride induced corrosion throughout the life of reinforced concrete structures is examined in both space and time domains.