A Genetic Rule-Based Fuzzy System to Estimate The Cover Thickness of Durable RC Structures

The skeptical part of building regulations for durability-design process might be attributed to the ambiguities arising from the qualitative and linguistic definitions of the relevant parameters when dealing with the service life and durability of reinforced concrete (RC) structures. Handling of these parameters with traditional methods is not a straightforward matter but fuzzy systems as an advanced tool for processing the linguistic knowledge could be easily utilized to address this issue. Accordingly this paper introduces a support system assisted by rule-based genetic fuzzy system to quantify the environmental aggressiveness and subsequently infer a minimum cover thickness for durable reinforced concrete members in the corrosive environments.