An overview of the new approach in frost durability evaluation of concrete structures

Many efforts have been done to assess the service life of the concrete infrastructure such as dams, bridge decks and concrete pavements in the cold regions. However, no correlations were obtained between the real structures performance and the laboratory results. These differences originate mainly from the fact that the loading conditions and existing stresses were not considered in the test methods and subsequently, reliable results were not obtained from the experiments.
Recently, the concrete structures design methods tended to create a model based on the concrete performance instead of the conventional ones. However, no sufficient reliable laboratory results are available for real assessment, and there is an urgent need to develop performance-based tests consists of two or more combined deterioration mechanisms.
In the present paper, an overview of existing test methods and a selection of the most important combinations of coupled mechanical loads and environmental actions in cold climates is provided. This contribution may help the engineers to have a clear vision about the real behavior of the structure, in the cold regions, which should suffer both freeze thaw cycles and different types of loadings.