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Introduction
Besides being eroded by carbon dioxide and chloride,
concrete bridges in coastal or marine environment are
also subjected to the dead load and vehicle load. Some
concrete bridges, only in operation for approximately
10 years, start to have reinforcement corrosion and protection layer spalling, which will seriously affect the structures safety, serviceability and durability. To ensure the
service life of bridges, the durability of the concrete
material itself plays a key role.
In marine-atmosphere environment with sufficient
oxygen supply, the coupling effect of concrete carbonation and chloride ion erosion can cause the acceleration
of concrete damage and intensification of concrete corrosion. According to the mechanism of concrete corrosion, micro-cracks inside the concrete, under the
heavy load of a bridge, will be expanded to a certain
extent, then the damage and deterioration of a concrete
structure will be further accelerated and intensified, thus
the service life of the concrete structure will be shortened
correspondingly.1
Under the coupling effects of environment and heavy
traffic, concrete bridges in Hainan have serious steel corrosion. In particular, the concrete carbonation depth of
these bridges is significantly higher than those in the
inland areas. Based on the durability test data of the
bridges in Hainan, this research explored how the following factors, namely, the strength grade of concrete, stress
condition, chloride ion content and environment, influenced the depth of the concrete carbonation. In the meantime, a prediction model for the concrete carbonation
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(ii) annual temperature and relative humidity are relatively higher in this region;
(iii) concrete grade of the bridges is high;
(iv) since there is no road toll station in Hainan, roads
are overloaded by vehicles.
Prediction models of the concrete carbonation depth of
the in-service bridges in Hainan were studied from the
above four aspects and discussed as follows.
So far, scholars from home and abroad have had a relatively mature cognition on the concrete carbonation
mechanism and influencing factors. The law that carbonation depth is proportional to the square root of the carbonised time has been widely accepted.2 There are three
categories of concrete carbonation depth models: theoretical model,3 empirical model and practical model
based on diffusion theory and experiments.4,5
According to the existing data and taking into account
that the depth of the concrete carbonation of the
bridges in Hainan is related to the factors such as the
stress condition of concrete, bridge environment and concrete quality, a modified random carbonation depth
model with multiple coefficients was derived on the
basis of Refs. 57, as shown in equation (1).
At present, most concrete carbonation models are established on the basis of the results of low-grade concrete
test or survey of actual engineering project. However, in
a real bridge structure, the grade of concrete strength is
higher. The concrete strength grade of the in-service
bridges in Hainan generally ranges from C30 to C50.
There is a large deviation between the carbonation
depth calculated by the existing model and the measured
results.
In order to determine the suitable concrete quality
impact coefficient for Hainan province, a standard
environment was set to analyse the data of the concrete
carbonation of 63 bridges in recent years. A diagram
was obtained to demonstrate the relation between the
speed of concrete carbonation and the standard value of
the concrete compressive strength (Fig. 1).
The results showed that the concrete carbonation depth
was proportional to the reciprocal of the compressive
strength. According to the trend of the scatter
diagram,3,5 equation (2) was selected for a regression
analysis:
X (t) = Kmc kj kCl kCO2 kp ks Ke Kf t
1
Kf = 68.83fcu,k
0.7307
(1)
(2)
1 Relation schema of the carbonation speed and the standard value of the concrete compressive strength
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Ren et al.
2 Schema of the relation between the carbonation speed and the concrete compressive stress level
element calculation, the actual stress in the concrete carbonation detected region was obtained.
Through normalisation of the concrete carbonation
depth data of the in-service bridges in Hainan area to
the uniform environment standards, a schema about the
relationship between the concrete carbonation rate and
the concrete stress level was obtained (Figs. 2 and 3).
It indicated that the greater the concrete compressive
stress, the slower the concrete carbonation; the larger
the tensile stress, the faster the concrete carbonation
(Figs. 2 and 3). This was in consistent with the results
of Ref. 9, where the concrete carbonation velocity and
the stress level was a quadratic function relation.
According to the trend of the scatter diagram, quadratic
polynomial can be selected as the most reasonable
method for the regression analysis. The following
equations can be obtained for a standard environment
in Hainan:
For the compressive stress:
ks = 0.6973 + 4.363sc 18.18s2c
for the tensile stress:
ks = 0.1291 + 11.74st 5.991s2t
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(4)
3 Schema of the relation between the carbonation speed and the concrete tensile stress level
(3)
9.73
10.45
12.93
11.49
4.19
11.23
11.42
12.06
13.76
12.84
3.58
13.08
13
13
12
11
11
13
11.75
12.10
14.60
11.90
3.20
12.71
4
Ke = T (1 RH)RH
(5)
where is the environment impact factor, RH is the relative humidity of environment (%) and T is the mean
annual temperature of environment (C).
The value of reflects the environment impact on the
carbonation depth in the area. According to the data in
Refs. 5 and 12, combining with the measured data of
Hainan province, for the region of Hainan, a standard
environment is determined as RH = 80% and T = 25C.
Through calculation, the value of is 2.816.
22.34
16.50
33.37
16.72
28.99
20.80
5.35
2.55
7.96
2.47
4.54
2.65
7
8
9
10
11
12
Pier
Pier
Pier
Pier
Pier
Pier
24.75
17.02
33.11
15.20
25.69
21.36
Hollow slab
T beam
Box girder
T beam
T beam
Hollow slab
13
12
13
11
13
13
4
X (t) = 2.816kj kCl kCO2 kp ks T RH(1 RH)
1
68.83fcu,k
0.7307 s t
1
2
3
4
5
6
Service
Calculated values in Calculated values in
time/year Measured values/mm this study/mm
Ref. 5/mm
Service
Calculated values in Calculated values
Detected
time/year Measured values/mm this study/mm
in Ref. 5/mm
No. site
Detected
No. site
Table 1 Comparison between the calculated values and the measured values of the concrete carbonation depth of the bridges in Hainan (a part of the results)
Ren et al.
(6)
Model verification
In order to verify the applicability and practicability of
this model and predict the concrete carbonation depth
of the in-service bridges in Hainan, the study conducted
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Conclusions
1. Through the durability test on the in-service concrete
bridges in Hainan, it can be concluded that under the
combined effects of environment and vehicle loads,
there are serious reinforcement corrosions in concrete, and the concrete carbonation depth is significantly higher than that in the inland areas, and also
higher than the calculated results from the classical
prediction model for carbonation depth.
2. Most concrete carbonation models are based on the
result of low-grade concrete test or survey of actual
engineering project, but the actual strength grade of
concrete bridge structure is higher. The carbonation
depth calculated by the existing model greatly
varied from the measured results. In this study, the
actual bridge carbonation data collected in recent
years were employed to calculate the concrete
quality impact coefficients. The results fit better
with the measured results.
3. The phenomenon of vehicle overloading is serious in
Hainan. The impact on the carbonation depth of concrete from stress condition is big. Through the statistical analysis of traffic volume and finite element
calculation, the relationship between the real stress
level of concrete and the carbonation rate is obtained:
the greater the concrete compressive stress, the slower
the concrete carbonation rate; the larger the tensile
stress, the faster the concrete carbonation rate.
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Acknowledgement
This study was supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (51208096).
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