TY - JOUR
T1 - Pitting corrosion and structural reliability of corroding RC structures
T2 - Experimental data and probabilistic analysis
AU - Stewart, Mark G.
AU - Al-Harthy, Ali
N1 - Funding Information:
The assistance of graduate student John Mullard and the laboratory staff, particularly Goran Simundic, Roger Reece and Ian Jeans, is greatly appreciated. The support of the Australian Research Council under Grant DP0451871 is gratefully acknowledged.
PY - 2008/3
Y1 - 2008/3
N2 - A stochastic analysis is developed to assess the temporal and spatial variability of pitting corrosion on the reliability of corroding reinforced concrete (RC) structures. The structure considered herein is a singly reinforced RC beam with Y16 or Y27 reinforcing bars. Experimental data obtained from corrosion tests are used to characterise the probability distribution of pit depth. The RC beam is discretised into a series of small elements and maximum pit depths are generated for each reinforcing steel bar in each element. The loss of cross-sectional area, reduction in yield strength and reduction in flexural resistance are then inferred. The analysis considers various member spans, loading ratios, bar diameters and numbers of bars in a given cross-section, and moment diagrams. It was found that the maximum corrosion loss in a reinforcing bar conditional on beam collapse was no more than 16%. The probabilities of failure considering spatial variability of pitting corrosion were up to 200% higher than probabilities of failure obtained from a non-spatial analysis after 50 years of corrosion. This shows the importance of considering spatial variability in a structural reliability analysis for deteriorating structures, particularly for corroding RC beams in flexure.
AB - A stochastic analysis is developed to assess the temporal and spatial variability of pitting corrosion on the reliability of corroding reinforced concrete (RC) structures. The structure considered herein is a singly reinforced RC beam with Y16 or Y27 reinforcing bars. Experimental data obtained from corrosion tests are used to characterise the probability distribution of pit depth. The RC beam is discretised into a series of small elements and maximum pit depths are generated for each reinforcing steel bar in each element. The loss of cross-sectional area, reduction in yield strength and reduction in flexural resistance are then inferred. The analysis considers various member spans, loading ratios, bar diameters and numbers of bars in a given cross-section, and moment diagrams. It was found that the maximum corrosion loss in a reinforcing bar conditional on beam collapse was no more than 16%. The probabilities of failure considering spatial variability of pitting corrosion were up to 200% higher than probabilities of failure obtained from a non-spatial analysis after 50 years of corrosion. This shows the importance of considering spatial variability in a structural reliability analysis for deteriorating structures, particularly for corroding RC beams in flexure.
KW - Concrete
KW - Pitting corrosion
KW - Spatial variability
KW - Structural reliability
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ress.2006.12.013
DO - 10.1016/j.ress.2006.12.013
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:35348970935
SN - 0951-8320
VL - 93
SP - 373
EP - 382
JO - Reliability Engineering and System Safety
JF - Reliability Engineering and System Safety
IS - 3
ER -