Corrosion Induced Cracking of Reinforced Concrete

Abstract : In this work a coupled mechanical and transport lattice model based on Delaunay and Voronoi tessellations is used to model the penetration of corrosion products into the vicinity of the steel in a concrete specimen. The penetration of the corrosion products into the concrete is described by constitutive laws developed for volume transport through porous materials and the cracking resulting from this is modelled by the mechanical lattice using a damage mechanics constitutive law. The effect of penetration of the corrosion products into the pores and cracks on the time to cracking is investigated as part of this work. The numerical results are compared to experimental results reported in the literature.