Evaluation of the mechanical properties of steel reinforcement embedded in concrete specimen as a function of the degree of reinforcement corrosion

Abstract

This study was carried out to investigate quantitatively the relationship between the degree of reinforcement corrosion and the mechanical properties of reinforcement. In the experiment, the tensile test of corroded reinforcement was conducted at different stage of reinforcement corrosion. As a result, it was found that the chloride-induced corrosion caused the pitting and the corrosion using electrical current caused the uniformed corrosion. As the degree of reinforcement corrosion increased, the nominal yield point and nominal elastic modulus decreased. Also, there were very high correlations between the degree of reinforcement corrosion and the mechanical properties of reinforcement. We could make the material constitutive laws for the mechanical properties of reinforcement as a function of the degree of corrosion. Also, it is possible to analyze the strength of damaged RC members with reinforcement corrosion using constitutive laws of reinforcement by the FEM.