The Corrosion Characteristics and Tensile Behavior of Reinforcement under Coupled Carbonation and Static Loading

This paper describes the non-uniform corrosion characteristics and mechanical properties of reinforcement under coupled action of carbonation and static loading. The two parameters, namely area-box (AB) value and arithmetical mean deviation (R_a), are adopted to characterize the corrosion morphology and pitting distribution from experimental observations. The results show that the static loading affects the corrosion characteristics of reinforcement. Local stress concentration in corroded reinforcement caused by tensile stress drives the corrosion pit pattern to be more irregular. The orthogonal test results from finite element simulations show that pit shape and pit depth are the two significant factors affecting the tensile behavior of reinforcement. Under the condition of similar corrosion mass loss ratio, the maximum plastic strain of corroded reinforcement increases with the increase of R_a and load time-history significantly.