Analysis of chloride penetration into the corner zone of concrete structure member

Abstract

Chloride penetration into concrete is the main cause of steel corrosion in concrete structures exposed to chloride-rich environments. In general, conditions on the diffusion process are dominant among various penetration mechanisms, such as ionic diffusion, capillary sorption, and so on. In recent analysis of current literature, chloride diffusion is as a simplified one-dimensional diffusion process. However, for the rebar in the corner zone of concrete beam, the diffusion belongs to a two-dimensional diffusion. Based on a galerkin finite element method, a two-dimensional diffusion differential equation is built and solved numerically and the different chloride concentration is compared to one dimensional diffusion and two-dimensional diffusion process. The service life of concrete structure members under two-dimensional chloride penetration is predicted by compared with a critical threshold chloride concentration. Compared with general one-dimensional chloride attack, the service life is considerably reduced in a corner zone due to two-dimension penetration.