A coupled carbonation- rust formation-mechanical damage model for steel corrosion in reinforced concrete

T. T. H. Nguyen , B. Bary , Thomas de Larrard (1) , Valérie L'Hostis (2)

1 LMDC - Laboratoire Matériaux et Durabilité des constructions
2 CEA - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives

This paper aims at presenting a strategy to simulate the corrosion of steel reinforcement due to carbonation of concrete in atmospheric environment. We propose a model coupling drying, carbonation, diffusion of oxygen, formation of rust and mechanics to describe these phenomena. The rust layer is assumed to be composed of two sub-layers with different elastic modulus. An unstable layer with a low modulus (from 0.1 to 5 GPa) is located next to the transformed medium, and another more stable one with a higher modulus (from 100 to 150 GPa) at the interface with steel reinforcement. This model is applied to a numerical mesostructure composed of 4 phases: mortar matrix, randomly distributed aggregates, steel rebar and rust layers to underline the effect of aggregates on damage initiation and corresponding crack pattern of concrete cover.

Mots clés: cover cracking; long-term corrosion; rebar corrosion; archaeological artifacts

Domaines: Génie civil

T. T. H. Nguyen, B. Bary, Thomas de Larrard, Valérie L'Hostis. A coupled carbonation- rust formation-mechanical damage model for steel corrosion in reinforced concrete. Bicanic, N. and Mang, H. and Meschke, G. and DeBorst, R. Crc Press-Taylor & Francis Group, 2014, 978-1-138-02642-1 978-1-315-76203-6. ⟨hal-01850766⟩