Impacts of reinforcement ratio and fatigue load level on the chloride ingress and service life estimating of fatigue loaded reinforced concrete (RC) beams

• Published in: Construction & building materials Vol. 266; p. 120999
• Main Authors: Wu, Jieqiong, Xu, Jianchao, Diao, Bo, Panesar, Daman K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 10-01-2021
• Subjects: Chloride ingress; Fatigue loading; Load level; RC beams; Reinforcement ratio; Service life; Service life; RC beams; Fatigue loading; Reinforcement ratio; Load level; Chloride ingress
• ISSN: 0950-0618; 1879-0526
• DOI: 10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2020.120999

•Cl- ingress and service life are analyzed with reinforcement ratios and load levels.•Fatigue loads with high values expedite the Cl- ingress of compressive concrete.•Cl- ingress increases and service life reduces ≥ 93% as fatigue load level reaches 0.4.•Varying reinforcement ratios affect Cl- ingress but rarely affect the service life.
High-cycle fatigue loading combined with chloride exposure was studied with a close investigation of reinforcement ratio (1.06%, 1.59%, 2.91%) and fatigue load level (0.2–0.5). This study conducts both, experimentally and service life modeling based on the Monte-Carlo simulation. Results show that: (1) high-value fatigue loads expedite the chloride ingress of compressive concrete; (2) at the load level of ≥ 0.4, chloride ingress of tensile concrete significantly increases and service life decreases ≥ 93%; (3) although reinforcement ratio of 1.59% decreases the chloride ingress of tensile concrete, varying the reinforcement ratio rarely affects the service life.