Investigating the spatial development of corrosion of corner-located steel bar in concrete by X-ray computed tomography

In this paper, the chloride-induced corrosion progression of a corner located steel bar in concrete is investigated by X-ray computed tomography (i.e., X-CT). Corrosion of steel bar is accelerated by placing the reinforced specimen in a wetting and drying cyclic corrosive environment, rather than by the impressed current method. 3D X-CT images are obtained and processed to characterize the different material phases, consisting of, steel bar, mortar, corrosion products and voids/cracks. The corrosion products expansion and concrete cracking are analysed and discussed. It has been found that pitting corrosion is prone to appear around the voids close to the steel bar, mainly due to the pre-existing supply of oxygen and moisture. In addition, a distinct transverse crack has been identified which is caused by non-uniform corrosion along the reinforcing steel bar. Within the cross-section, corrosion has also been found non-uniformly distributed, with the maximum rust layer pointing to the corner edge of the sample. Moreover, the corrosion rust distributions are used to parameterize a recently developed non-uniform corrosion model. This experimentally validated non-uniform corrosion model can be applied to corrosion-induced concrete cracking problems with confirmed accuracy. The combination of the use of wetting and drying cyclic corrosive environment and the X-CT scanning can provide a new method to the non-destructive investigation of corrosion process, rust distribution and corrosion-induced concrete cracking in the reinforced concrete structures

Meso-scale Fracture Modelling of Concrete Cover Induced by Non-uniform Corrosion of Reinforcing Bar

Corrosion-induced concrete cracking is a significant durability problem for reinforced concrete structures. In practice, critical corrosion degree to surface cracking and crack width evolution are of significance in regards to the assessment of serviceability of reinforced concrete structures. Literature review suggests that, although considerable research has been undertaken on corrosion-induced concrete cracking, little has been focused on non-uniform corrosion of reinforcing bar, especially by considering concrete as a three-phase materials. In this paper, a meso-scale fracture model, consisting of aggregates, cement paste/mortar and ITZ, is established. To simulate arbitrary cracking in concrete, cohesive elements are inserted in the fine meshes and the process is achieved through a script written in Python. It has been found that some microcracks occur before they are connected to form a dominating discrete crack approaching to the surface. The surface crack width is obtained as a function of corrosion degree and verification against experimental results from literature is conducted