Service-life design of concrete structures in marine environments: A probabilistic based approach

Concrete structures in marine environment show signs of degradation due to the corrosion of the reinforcement in the presence of chlorides. Despite the fact that the environments is particularly sever, other factors contribute to the premature degradation such as: poor construction quality; prescriptive-based standards; and poor design as a result of insufficient information with regards to the parameters that influence the degradation process. A model for reinforcement corrosion initiation is developed primarily for providing a general basis for durability design/assessment of concrete structures in marine environment. The proposed model, which satisfies the balanced between practicality and robustness, requires little basic data either available or easily obtainable. As an extension of the model, a probability-based software is proposed for the durability analysis. The parameters of the model discussed and their sensitivity analysed. The proposed model provides valuable information indicating the effect of each parameter on the outcome of a durability design.