Effects of Steel-Concrete Interface Defects on Corrosion Cracking in Chloride Environment  
Author Ruijin Zhang

 

Co-Author(s) Yongfa Xia; Liyang Xie

 

Abstract This paper deals with the influence of the steelconcrete interface defects due to “Top-bar effect” on the steel bar corrosion and concrete cracking in a chloride environment. Four high size concrete members were cast including ten horizontal steel bars at different levels. Linear polarization resistance (LPR) method was used to monitor the corrosion process of reinforcing steel and the corrosion cracks were observed using Video-Microscope in corrosion process. Experimental results show that a good quality of steelconcrete interface can significantly delay the corrosion initiation and diminish the corrosion rate. Nevertheless the interface voids can delay the concrete cracking initiation for specimens with defect regardless of its higher corrosion rate. This delay can be attributed to the time necessary for the rust to fill the voids. The concrete cracking rate should be influenced by the coupled effect of the corrosion rate and the corrosion pattern of steel bar.

 

Keywords Reinforced concrete, Chloride corrosion, Steel-concrete interface, Cracking
   
    Article #:  20302
 
Proceedings of the 20th ISSAT International Conference on Reliability and Quality in Design
August 7-9, 2014 - Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.