Service Life and Durability of Reinforced Concrete Structures Present in Marine Environment

Abstract

Reinforced concrete structures present in the marine environment are subject to physical attacks, due to the waves collision against the concrete structures, and chemical attacks, due to the presence of the different ions present in seawater that react both with the concrete and the reinforcement leading to structure’s degradation. In this sense, marine environment is characterized as one of the most aggressive to coastal reinforced concrete infrastructures. Thus, this chapter deals with the aggressiveness of the marine environment towards these structures, taking into account since the different mechanisms of substance penetration in the different marine aggressive zones up to recent empirical models for service life prediction of structures present in this environment. It is expected to contribute to a better understanding of the marine environment effects on the degradation of reinforced concrete structures, allowing the managers responsible for the conservation of these structures to have a bibliographic tool easy to read that helps in their decision making about the service life of concrete structures present in marine environment.