Stiffness Degradation and Time to Cracking of Cover Concrete in Reinforced Concrete Structures Subject to Corrosion
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 136, Issue 2
Abstract
Corrosion-induced cracks in reinforced concrete (RC) structures degrade the stiffness of the cover concrete. The stiffness degradation is mainly caused by the softening in the stress-strain relation in the cracked concrete. Limited efforts have been made to model the cracking and the corresponding effects on the cover concrete, despite of its importance in assessing and modeling the behavior of RC structures. This paper proposes a stiffness degradation factor to model the stiffness degradation of the cover concrete subject to cracking. The proposed factor is computed in terms of the cracking strain corresponding to the maximum opening of the concrete cracks based on an energy principle applied to a fractured RC structure. The time to cracking of the cover concrete is then determined as the time from the corrosion initiation needed by the crack front to reach the outer surface of the cover concrete. The proposed stiffness degradation factor and the method to compute the time to cracking are illustrated through two numerical examples. The times to cracking of the cover concrete that are predicted using the proposed method are in agreement with the measured values from laboratory experiments.
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Acknowledgments
The writers thank Dr. Pillai for helpful discussions and suggestions and the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering at UNSPECIFIEDTexas A&M University, College Station, Texas, for its financial support.
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Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 136 • Issue 2 • February 2010
Pages: 209 - 219
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Oct 15, 2008
Accepted: Jul 16, 2009
Published online: Jul 18, 2009
Published in print: Feb 2010
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