Strength degradation of reinforced concrete piers wrapped with steel plates under local corrosion

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the strength degradation of reinforced concrete piers wrapped with steel plates which corrode at the pier base by employing a three dimensional elasto-plastic finite element formulation. The prediction accuracy of the employed finite element analysis method is firstly verified by comparing the analytical results with test results. Then, a series of parametric studies is carried out to investigate the effects of steel plate's corrosion position along width direction, corrosion depth along plate thickness, corrosion range along width direction, and steel plate-concrete bonding degradation on the strength of the piers. It is observed that the strength degradation of the piers is closely related to steel plate's corrosion position, corrosion depth and corrosion range in the case of local corrosion on the webs. In contrast, when the base of flanges corrodes, the strength degradation of the piers is only related to steel plate's corrosion depth and corrosion range, and the influence of corrosion position on the strength degradation is very gentle. Furthermore, the strength of the piers decreases with the degradation of steel plate-concrete bonding behavior. Finally, the maximum strength of the piers obtained from numerical analysis corresponding to different bonding behavior is compared with theoretical results within an accepted error.