Durability of concrete under combined mechanical load and environmental actions: a review: Fid-Bau Portal

Durability of concrete under combined mechanical load and environmental actions: a review

Yao, Yan / Wang, Zhendi / Wang, Ling

For a long time, research on durability was focused on one dominating deteriorating process. As a consequence, first attempts to develop a method for service life design for reinforced concrete structures were based on the assumption of one dominant deterioration process, such as carbonation, chloride penetration, or frost action, acting alone. Although this was a decisive step in the direction of more durable and more ecological construction, it was soon recognized that combinations of different deterioration processes may be much more severe than processes acting separately. This means that service life is underestimated in many practical applications if only one action is taken into consideration. In fact, synergetic effects of simultaneously or consecutively acting mechanical loads and environmental actions cannot be neglected. Compression, tension, and bending are frequently encountered mechanical loads, while chloride penetration, sulfate attack, carbonation, and leaching are widely known chemical actions and frost damage is the most important physical action. Due to the fact that there exist a multitude of possible load combinations, no wide database with reliable experimental results are available so far. Major publications on this topic will be published in an annotated bibliography in the near future. An overview on different test methods to study the influence of combined actions on durability is given in this paper. It is suggested that the validity of new test methods should be examined by comparative test series. Results of laboratory tests are to be compared with the performance of reinforced concrete structures in the field in aggressive environment.