Effect of Reinforcement Geometry on the Probability of Corrosion Initiation in Reinforced Concrete Structures

During the last decade, major developments have been made to include durability of reinforced concrete structures into the design process. As corrosion of reinforcement steel is considered the major threat, special attention has been given to models for chloride ingress into concrete. However, mostly analytical expressions based on Fick's second law of diffusion are used and consequently this introduces major limitations. In this paper the genometrical constraints imposed by embedded reinforcing bars is addressed. To this end, numerical calculations have been performed to quantify the effect of physical hindrance of chloride ingress on the corrosion initiation time. Based on the findings, it is concluded that the common approach assuming a unilaterial undisturbed ingress presents too optimistic results. Consequently, it is advocated to include the reinforcement geometry into service life calculations so as to achieve a more realistic assessment of the performance of reinforced concrete structures over time.