Mesoscopic model to simulate the mechanical behavior of reinforced concrete members affected by corrosion

P.J. SÁNCHEZ; A.E. HUESPE; J. OLIVER; S. TORO

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOLIDS AND STRUCTURES

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

Año: 2010 vol. 47 p. 559 - 570

0020-7683

In this contribution, a finite element methodology devised to simulate the structural deterioration ofcorroded reinforced concrete members is presented. The proposed numerical strategy has the abilityto reproduce many of the well-known (undesirable) mechanical effects induced by corrosion processesin the embedded steel bars, as for example: expansion of the reinforcements due to the corrosion productaccumulation, damage and cracking patterns distribution in the surrounding concrete, degradation ofsteel?concrete bond stress transfer, net area reduction in the reinforcements and, mainly, the influenceof all these mentioned mechanisms on the structural load carrying capacity predictions.At the numerical level, each component of the RC structure is represented by means of a suitable FEformulation. For the concrete, a cohesive model based on the Continuum Strong Discontinuity Approach(CSDA) is used. Steel bars are modeled by means of an elasto-plastic constitutive relation. The interface issimulated using contact-friction elements, with the friction degradation as a function of the degree ofcorrosion attack. Two different (and coupled) mesoscopic analyzes are considered in order to describethe main physical phenomena that govern the problem: (i) an analysis at the cross section level and(ii) an analysis at the structural member level.The resultant mechanical model can be used to simulate generalized reinforcement corrosion. Experimentaland previous numerical results, obtained from the available literature, are used to validate theproposed strategy.