Experimental and numerical study of the structural effects of steel corrosion in continuous RC beams

• Autores: Ignasi Fernández Pérez
• Directores de la Tesis: Jesús Miguel Bairán García (dir. tes.), Antonio R. Marí Bernat (dir. tes.)
• Lectura: En la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) ( España ) en 2015
• Idioma: inglés
• Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Eva Oller Ibars (presid.), Antoni Cladera Bohigas (secret.), Fabio Biondini (voc.)
• Materias:
  • Ciencias tecnológicas
    • Tecnología de la construcción
      • Ingeniería civil
      • Ingeniería de estructuras
• Enlaces
  • Tesis en acceso abierto en: TDX
• Resumen

  • Many reinforced concrete structures suffer damage due to aging and due to the environmental agressivity, thus affecting their serviceability performance and safety. Structural evaluation of a deteriorated structure is necessary to assess the actual structure state, to determine whether the structure should be strengthened or demolished and to optimize the interventions required to guarantee its serviceability and safety. In the case of statically indeterminate structures, as many of the existing bridges and buildings, the damage produced by local or general deterioration processes may affect the whole structure state of forces, stresses and cracks. However, even though the difficulties to adequately assess such type of structures very scarce resarch works have been done, up to now, in this field. The present research aims to contribute to those goals presenting an extensive experimental campaign, at the material and at the structural levels. Furthermore, theoretical and numerical studies based on mechanical non-linear models were performed in order to reproduce the observed experimental behaviour and to contribute to the modelling of the performance of deteriorated structures. The global effects of the structural damage were addressed by means of an experimental study, which encompassed twelve continuous two span large-scale beams. The cast beams divided in four groups of three beams each were submitted to different corrosion levels; one group was left uncorroded. Each beam was loaded with different sustained loads to assess its effect when corrosion phenomena took place. Thereafter, the beams were unloaded and loaded again up to failure. On the other hand, the local effects of steel corrosion were analysed by means of two different experimental studies. The first study encompassed more than 192 corroded steel bars. The specimens were cleaned, and after, characterized under cyclic and monotonic loads. The second study encompassed 48 cubic concrete specimens with embedded steel reinforcement bars. Different concrete types were used, including recycled aggregate concretes. The steel was submitted to accelerated corrosion and thereafter the effect of corrosion on the bond behaviour was assessed. Finally, modelling of the mechanical properties of corroded steel bars and bond in concrete was done. A model to evaluate the corroded steel reinforcement mechanical properties, s-e and fatigue life, was developed. In addition, the 3D scan novel technique was used to characterise the outer surface of corroded steel bars, by which the study of the corrosion pitting distribution and the critical cross-section was possible. Corrosion of steel reinforcement produced a substantial increment of the deflections as well as the stresses at the steel, both in the corroded and the uncorroded regions, due to the redistributions that took place in the continuous beams as a consequence of the loss of steel section. Furthermore, the redundancy of the structure provided them an extra load capacity with respect to a statically determinate beam. On the other hand, the ultimate load capacity was severely reduced. A non-linear reduction of the corroded steel mechanical properties was found. Yielding and ultimate stresses described a good correlation with respect to the corrosion level. However, the results for modulus and ultimate strain presented more dispersion. Bond capacity of recycled concrete aggregates was showed to be similar to natural aggregate concretes. Nevertheless, in corroded specimens, recycled aggregate concretes showed better performance describing lower ultimate bond reduction with respect to those of conventional concrete. The presented mechanical model defined with an excellent reliability yielding and ultimate stresses for corroded bars up to 60% of corrosion levels. The statistical model presented for the pitting depth allowed to define the upper and lower bounds of the pitting depth regarding to corrosion level.