Pressure required to cause cover cracking of concrete due to reinforcement corrosion

Abstract

Tests were carried out to investigate the magnitude of pressure created by corrosion products on steel in reinforced concrete that would cause surface cracking of the concrete cover. Test specimens were 150 mm cubes with 8 mm or 16 mm holes provided at various locations and formed by reinforcing bars. The cracking resistance of cover concrete was measured experimentally by pressurizing the holes, and an attempt was made at its prediction using plastic methods of analysis. Experimental failure pressures were found to be influenced by cover/bar diameter ratio, aggregate size, bar diameter, and bar location. The observed lack of correlation between tensile strength and failure pressure lends support to the suggestion made by other researchers that a fracture mechanics approach may be more appropriate. This suggestion was supported by an unsuccessful attempt to find a relationship between cover thickness and effective plastic strength.

Test Method for Cracking Resistance of Cover Concrete due to Corrosion of Reinforcement

“…According to non-linear fracture mechanics, this crack pattern is especially for the materials which behave tensile softening. Similar crack patterns were also found in the specimens tested by Williamson and Clark (2000) despite different sizes of specimens, different cover material, and different ways of applying pressure. The location and the direction of crack in the thinnest cover direction closely represented the crack occurrence due to re-bar corrosion in the real structures.…”

Evaluation Method for Bond-Splitting Behavior of Reinforced Concrete with Corrosion Based on Confinement Stress of Concrete against Corrosion Expansion

“…(3) Adaptability of the maximum confinement stress model Morinaga (1988) and Williamson (Williamson and Clark 2000) experimentally investigated corrosion-induced expansion pressure associated with cracks on the cover surface. To assess whether the proposed model conforms to those of previous studies, the values calculated by Equation (9) are compared with their experimental results.…”

“…The confinement stress of concrete was investigated by Morinaga (1988) and Williamson and Clark (2000). According to their studies, the confinement stress of concrete is affected by concrete strength, concrete cover thickness, and reinforcement diameter.…”

Finite element analysis of cracking and delamination of concrete beam due to steel corrosion

“…Over the past decades a number of experimental investigations have been conducted to study the effect of corrosion on both performance and cracking of concrete structures [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. In these investigations, the corrosion of a steel bar in the concrete was reproduced artificially either by applying an internal pressure or conducting accelerated corrosion tests.…”