Influence of effective chloride corrosion parameters variations on corrosion initiation

Reinforcement inside the concrete is protected from corrosion and its damages until several years after the construction. After corrosion initiation, the Cross Section of Reinforcement begins to reduce and often load bearing of the reinforced concrete structure will be reduced significantly. Corrosion of reinforcements in concrete in polluted and contaminated areas can be occurred in two ways: Chloride and Carbonation. Chloride ion ingress is one of the major problems that affect the durability of reinforced concrete structures such as bridge decks, concrete pavements, and other structures exposed to harsh saline environments. Corrosion occurrence and development in reinforced concrete structures increase the steel volume and produce products with volume of about 2-7 times the steel initial volume. This volume increase, which is due to cracks, reduces the compressive and tensile strengths in reinforced concrete structures. Therefore, durability based design of concrete structures in marine areas has gained great significance in recent decades and various mathematical models for estimating the service life of reinforced concrete have been proposed. In spite of comprehensive researches on the corrosion of reinforced concrete, there are still various controversial concepts. Effect of environmental conditions on durability of concrete structures is one of the most important issues. Hence, regional investigations are necessary for durability-based design and evaluation of the models proposed for service-life prediction. The Persian Gulf is one of themost aggressive regions of the world because of elevated temperature and humidity as well as high content of chloride ions in seawater. Corrosion of reinforcement due to chloride ions attack causes enormous damages to structures in severe condition of marine environments. Normally, high alkaline property of concrete (PH≈13) forms a protective oxide layer on the steel surface. This is called a passive protection. The dioxide existing in the atmosphere or the chloride in the concrete environment along with the moisture and the oxygen can penetrate via the concrete pores and cracks and can reach the armature surface; then, by reducing concrete alkalinity, they cause armature corrosion inside the concrete by destroying the protective oxide layer on the steel. Chloride ions reach the passive layer according to the explained pattern and they begin to react in the passive layer when the amount of chloride ions go beyond the critical value and cause perforation corrosion. Since each influencing factor in the life time of the structure is subject to random variability and inherent uncertainties, a stochastic approach is utilized to predict the time for initiation of the corrosion. Based on Fick’s law, time for corrosion is a function of surface chloride, critical chloride, concrete cover thickness, and diffusion coefficient. The most common models service-life prediction of reinforced concrete structures under load chloride, only produce a limited definite time for the start of corrosion. In this paper monte carlo simulation use for service-life prediction of reinforced concrete structures of predict the time of corrosion initiation, and shown the influence of mean and standard deviation variations for each of the parameters that affect the occurrence of corrosion, on the time of initiation corrosion and impact of these factors on the probability initiation corrosion.