Author: Sourav Khatua

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

Corrosion of steel reinforcing bars embedded in concrete applications is a major problem all over the world. Effect of corrosion causes metal loss at sections, cracks in the concrete surrounding the reinforcing steel, spalling of cover concrete also leads to de-bonding of reinforcing bar from the concrete. Corrosion cracks in the surrounding concrete leads to loss in bond strength and finally reduce the structural strength and service life of the structure. This problem is consistently observed in structural slab bridges that are exposed to deicing salts during the winters. In the era of 1980's, black convention steel was replaced with epoxy-coated bars as a solution to prevent corrosion in bridge decks. However the advantage of using epoxy coated bars is still uncertain as the bond strength of these type of bars is a concern. Several researchers in the past have highlighted deleterious effect of corrosion on epoxy-coated bars that are damaged during handling. It is necessary to study the use of alternative reinforcing bars as means of corrosion protection in bridge deck applications. There are several corrosion resistant bars that are readily available in the market, but performance of these bars under accelerated corrosion conditions is still unclear. Six different types of bars which include, conventional black bars, epoxy-coated bars, hot dipped galvanizing bars, continuously galvanized bars, stainless steel bars and MMFX bars were studied in this thesis. The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of accelerated corrosion on bond strength of concrete. The bond between concrete and reinforcement bars play a major role in transfer of stresses from concrete to steel. However, corrosion weakens this bond, resulting in weakening of the Reinforced Concrete member. So, it was necessary to investigate the performance of CRR (Corrosion Resistant Bars) embedded in concrete and s ubjected to accelerated corrosion. The effect of addition of polypropylene fibers on the bond strength was studied. A total of 48 prism specimens were cast with CRR bars including the ones with fibers, of which 24 specimens were subjected to accelerated corrosion. The prisms were 6-inch cube with a reinforcing bar at the centre of each specimen. The embedment length of the bar was 2.5 inches at the mid-height of the section. An electrochemical cell was adopted by placing the specimens in a tank containing 5% salt solution with stainless steel cathode surrounding the specimen. The circuit was completed by connecting the cathode and the reinforcing bar to an external power supply. The specimens were subjected to accelerated corrosion for total of 21 days which includes a two-day wetting and one day drying cycle. Impressed current of 0.02A, calculated using Faraday's law to achieve 5% corrosion damage was supplied during the wetting cycle using external power source. The corroded specimens were then tested to investigate the loss of bond strength due to corrosion and capture any improvement in bond strength using polypropylene fibers. It was observed that, corrosion of bars showed serious bond loss leading to reduced pull-out strength with larger slip of the bars relative to the embedded concrete prisms. Addition of polypropylene fibers showed an improvement in the overall performance of the corroded specimens by increasing the load capacity, reducing slip and improving failure mode from brittle to more ductile mode, compared to un-corroded specimens..