STRUCTURAL RESPONSE OF CORROSIoN AFFECTED RC BEAMS

Abstract

Corrosion of reinforcement is the most commonly observed deterioration in reinforced concrete structures that are nearby to sea and those structures which are always in contact with water. Corrosion of reinforcement affects the performance and causes premature failures well before the expected service life of the structures. Corrosion being a complex phenomenon involving both physical and chemical deterioration cannot be exactly modeled without assuming some of the obvious things. In this dissertation, the structural response of a series of RC beams confined and unconfined, induced with different levels of corrosion is studied numerically using a non-linear finite element analysis. The finite element models are numerically simulated in FEM software- ATENA package for the corrosion affected reinforced concrete flexural members and validated using experimental data from published literature. The modeling is done indirectly by considering the after effects of corrosion and incorporating them in the model. Once the validation process is complete, parametric studies were performed on the same models for checking the effects of other response of the flexural members for various levels of corrosion. The various parameters considered for this study, examined the influence of varying properties of bond deterioration, reinforcement area reduction and corrosion damage in the tension steel of the beams and also on the transverse reinforcement on the predicted response. Finally the beam problem is related to a slab Culvert Bridge and modeled in a similar way the beams were modeled. The response of the slab in terms of its load carrying capacity with varying levels of corrosion was recorded and the same is reported in this dissertation. The failure pattern and its changes with varied levels of corrosion was also studied.