When the corrosion occurs, the corroded portion of the rebar turns into a voluminous rust product which creates the internal pressure on the surrounding concrete. This internal pressure results in the cracking of concrete. However, the surface crack location may…
When the corrosion occurs, the corroded portion of the rebar turns into a voluminous rust product which creates the internal pressure on the surrounding concrete. This internal pressure results in the cracking of concrete. However, the surface crack location may not correspond directly to the location of rebar corrosion. There are many parameters that affect the corrosion crack patterns, namely, concrete cover depth, amount and spacing of the rebar, the arrangement of rebar and so on. Due to the contribution of these parameters, identifying the corrosion location from the given surface crack information is difficult. In the real field, the structure condition is usually evaluated by the exterior surface inspection. Even though there are many technologies for observing the external condition of the structures, like a drone or digital image analysis technique, the method for investigating the internal corrosion condition are still limited and unclear. Hence, this paper aims to improve the understanding of the factors that affect the corrosion crack pattern through the use of numerical methods. The numerical system was developed based on the three-dimensional discrete analysis model, Rigid Body Spring Model (RBSM). Based on the characteristics of the discrete analysis model, by giving the expansive strain at the rebar-concrete interface, the numerical model can simulate the same expansion cracking as observed in actual cases of corrosion. Then, by using this model, the reinforced concrete models with different control conditions are simulated. The effect of stirrup confinement, concrete cover depth, diameter of rebar and number of rebars are studied through simulation results. Finally, the effect of influential parameters and the different crack patterns are discussed and presented.