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Condition assessment of a 63-year old reinforced concrete structure exposed to the North Sea

Condition assessment of a 63-year old reinforced concrete structure exposed to the North Sea

Li, Chun-Qing, Melchers, Robert E., Davidson, Mark and Yang, Shangtong (2008) Condition assessment of a 63-year old reinforced concrete structure exposed to the North Sea. In: Conference on Durability of Building Materials and Components (11DBMC) "Globality and Locality in Durability", 11-14 May 2008, Istanbul, Turkey. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

This paper describes the condition of a reinforced concrete balustrade consisting of some 1000 individual beam elements all exposed similarly to the hostile marine environment of the North Sea at Arbroath, Scotland since 1943. A comparison is made of the condition of the original construction with the condition of repairs carried out in 1968 and in 1993. It is shown that the 1943 construction shows very little corrosion-induced cracking and little rust staining even though it does not appear to be of high construction quality. Only a very low percentage of the balustrade beams have been replaced. In contrast the beam installed in 1968 and later in 1993 show very considerable and large concrete cracks directly attributable to the corrosion of the longitudinal reinforcement, even though the concrete is of a higher quality and density. A detailed condition survey and statistics of crack sizes are presented in the paper. It is found that the higher corrosion resistance of the 1943 concrete is generally consistent with the concrete electrical resistivity measurements but the degree of corrosion of the reinforcing bars is inconsistent with chloride penetration measurements. The results are compared with the very few observations available in the literature for ageing concrete structures in marine environments. The results cast doubt on the conventional wisdom that chloride content at the reinforcement correlates well with reinforcement
corrosion.

Item Type: Conference or Conference Paper (Paper)
Additional Information: This paper was presented at the 11DBMC International Conference on Durability of Building Materials and Components held in Istanbul, Turkey from 11-14 May 2008.
Uncontrolled Keywords: reinforcement, corrosion, marine, concrete, cracking, sustainable construction
Subjects: T Technology > T Technology (General)
T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
Pre-2014 Departments: School of Engineering
School of Engineering > Department of Civil Engineering
Related URLs:
Last Modified: 28 Jan 2020 10:11
URI: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/2766

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