Modeling corroded section configuration of steel bar in concrete structure

Predicting concrete cover cracking due to steel bar corrosion in concrete is an important problem for durability of reinforced concrete structures. A basic question in the prediction is distribution of corroded part of steel bar section. The corrosion products have characteristic of volume expansions; that leads to expansive pressure in the concrete. At present, an assumption of uniform corroded pattern along the perimeter of the steel bar has been adopted for analyzing the effect of corrosion products expansion and building the model. In this paper, the steel bars in concrete were corroded under artificial climate environment for accelerated aging. The propagation of the corrosion products layer between steel bar and concrete and its microstructure are discussed; and then, the corrosion products distribution called corrosion products layer on the steel bar in concrete is revealed. The distribution before corrosion cracking; the corrosion products distribute on the half circumference of the steel bar facing the concrete cover only, and the distribution has the shape of a half ellipse. Because of expansive characteristic of corrosion products, the distribution pattern of the corroded part of the steel bar section is proportional to the distribution of the corrosion products layer. Therefore, the configuration model of corroded steel bar section is built.