Peridynamic investigation of chloride diffusion in concrete under typical environmental factors

Abstract

A peridynamic (PD) model is developed to investigate the effects of typical environmental factors on chloride diffusion and time-to-corrosion initiation of embedded rebars in reinforced concrete structures exposed to marine environment. In the PD model, the continuum is discretized as numerous material points with associated volume and mass, and chloride ions transport from one material point to other material points over its ‘horizon’ by the PD bond. Four numerical examples and two convergence studies are implemented to validate the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed PD model. The predicted results are consistent with the analytical and experimental results and the optimal model parameters, including the horizon size and the number of material points in the horizon, are selected. Additionally, the effects of typical environmental factors on chloride diffusion are investigated. These results demonstrate that two dimensional (2D) chloride ingress into concrete is more severe than that in one dimension (1D). Time-to-corrosion initiation decreases with the decreasing distance from coastline and the increasing temperature and number of freeze-thaw cycle. Furthermore, comparing with the results under the mean monthly temperature, time-to-corrosion initiation is underestimated under the mean annual temperature.