SPECIAL SESSIONS

Performance based evaluation of corrosion in

reinforced and pre-stressed concrete structures
Organizer: U. Schneck

531

Life-Cycle and Sustainability of Civil Infrastructure Systems Strauss, Frangopol & Bergmeister (Eds)
2013 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-415-62126-7

Corrosion-induced cracking evolution and reliability

prediction of aging RC structures
H.-P. Chen
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Greenwich, Chatham Maritime,
Kent, UK

N. Xiao
College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou,
China

ABSTRACT: Reinforcement corrosion could cause serious deterioration of the durability and reliability to
aging concrete structures exposed to aggressive environments. The paper presents an approach for evaluating
crack development in the cover concrete due to reinforcement corrosion and predicting the structural reliability and remaining useful life on the basis of the concrete evolution. The proposed approach estimates analytically the time-to-crack at concrete cover surface and the crack width over time. The analytical estimates of
cracking development are examined by existing experimental data. The crack width at cover surface is then
adopted as a representative symptom associated with structural performance deterioration. The reliability
function directly links to the chosen hazard function and is expressed as a function of the symptom. This
symptom-based approach can be adopted for evaluating the current and future conditions and predicting the
remaining lifetime. Finally, a case study is utilized to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach.
1 INTRODUCTION

Many investigations have been undertaken during

last decade regarding the effect of rebar corrosion
and concrete cracking on the performance of concrete structures (Chen and Alani 2012; Liu and
Weyers 1998; Pantazopoulou and Papoulia 2001;
Vidal et al. 2004). Studies have been undertaken to
assess the effect of rebar corrosion on concrete
cracking (Andrade et al. 1993; Chen and Xiao 2012;
Mullard and Stewart 2011; Torres-Acosta and
Sagues 2004) and to predict the remaining useful residual life (Bhargava et al. 2007; Torres-Acosta and
Martinez-Madrid 2003). Reliability analysis associated with limit states of a structural system is often
utilised for assessing the safety of the structural systems (Stewart and Rosowsky 1998; Melchers, 1999;
Farrar and Lieven, 2007). However, research on the
prediction of crack development in concrete due to
reinforcement corrosion is limited, with specific reference to such concrete properties as softening in
tensile strength. Therefore, there is a need to develop
an approach for crack growth prediction in concrete
and then for the evaluation of structural reliability
and remaining useful life associated with concrete
cracking.
Reliability analysis associated with limit states of
a structural system is often utilized for assessing the
safety of the structural system at design stage. This
approach however displays some limitations for the
reliability analysis of existing structural systems, e.g.
it usually ignores additional knowledge available
from health monitoring; it often neglects the perfor-

The ability of concrete structures to fulfill their designed functions such as durability can be compromised because of performance deterioration. One of
the major causes of performance degradation in reinforced concrete structures such as motorway bridges
and marine structures is severe environments. For
example, because of the ingress of chlorides, chlorides penetrate into the concrete cover and initiate
chemical reactions, leading to reinforcement corrosion. Reinforcement corrosion consumes original
steel rebar, generates much lighter rust products and
creates expansive layer at the interface between the
reinforcement and the surrounding concrete cover.
As corrosion progresses, the expansive displacement
at the interface generated by accumulating rust
products causes tensile stress in the hoop direction
within the concrete cover, leading to radial splitting
cracks in the concrete. Consequently, the sectional
losses in the rebar and the cracking or even the spalling of the surrounding concrete significantly affect
the structural performance and eventually the remaining service life of the concrete structures.
Therefore, damage prognosis based on the prediction
of corrosion-induced concrete crack growth is of
great importance to define a timely maintenance
strategy and to prevent the premature failure of concrete structures (Frangopol et al. 2008; Straub and
Faber, 2005).

532

mance deterioration over time; and it is unable to

predict the safety and performance in the future.
New investigations are therefore required on reliability-based reassessment of structural systems focusing on updating structural reliability from monitored data. The symptom-based reliability is more
appropriate than the traditional time-based reliability
for existing structural members and system as the
monitoring process can provide useful data (symptoms) for further assessing current condition and
predicting future performance (Cempel et al. 2000;
Ceravolo et al. 2008).
The paper presents an approach for evaluating
symptom-based reliability and remaining useful life
of aging reinforced concrete structures from monitored data such as crack width data. The analytical
predictions for the crack growth in concrete cover
due to rebar corrosion are provided with consideration of the realistic bilinear softening curve for the
cracked concrete. The predicted results are then assumed here as the measured symptom in the numerical simulation study for damage prognosis in order
to evaluate the hazard function and reliability. Based
on continuous updating reliability, the remaining
useful life and the upcoming structural performance
are predicted.

performance of the concrete structures gradually deteriorates, eventually reaching the failure in delivering structural functions.
2.1 Reinforcement corrosion
Steel rebar may expand by as many as six times its
original volume, as suggested by Liu and Weyers
(1998). The volume increase could be estimated if
the mass of corrosion products and the mass of original steel consumed over time are available. The
mass of rust products (kg/m) over the original radius
of the rebar Rb (m) over time t (year) could be estimated from
M r (t )

tr
Mr

2
Rb
2Rb r

(2)

where r is density of corrosion rust with an approximate value of r 3600kg / m 3 .

To accommodate the volume increase due to corrosion, the interface between the steel rebar and the
surrounding concrete is to displace by a prescribed
quantity over time t. By neglecting the deformation
of the original steel and that of the corrosion products as well as the porous zone around the interface,
the expansion in radial direction is estimated from

The process of the resistance degradation of reinforced concrete structures affected by steel reinforcement corrosion is described in Fig. 1.

Concrete
Corrosion

(1)

where mc is an empirical coefficient taken as

mc 2.110 2 (Pantazopoulou and Papoulia 2001);
icorr represents the mean annual corrosion current
per unit length at the surface area of the bar (A/m2),
which can be measured on site based on the determination of the polarization resistance (Andrade and
Alonso 2001).
The corrosion penetration rate is defined as the
ratio of the thickness of corrosion rust layer tr over
the origin radius of rebar Rb, namely

2 PROBLEM MODELLING

Critical crack
front, rcr

u b (t )

Steel rebar, Rb

m
M r (t )
2Rb

(3)

where m is an empirical coefficient taken as

m 2.05 10 4 (Liu and Weyers 1998).
The prescribed displacement ub (t ) will be considered as the internal boundary condition of the
boundary-value problem for the evolution of cover
concrete cracking. The method described above is
based on the general assumption that reinforcement
corrosion occurs uniformly and thus the expansion is
uniform around the internal boundary of the concrete
cover. Recent study by Jang and Oh (2010) suggests
that in actual aggressive environments reinforcement
corrosion may start from the places close to the free
surfaces of the concrete cover and thus the rebar
may not corrode uniformly in a cross section. However, the difference in crack development between
uniform expansion and non-uniform expansion is
small in the case when the corrosion distribution co-

C
External model
boundary, Rc

mcRb icorrt

Equivalent

Figure 1. Thick-walled cylinder model for cover concrete

cracking evolution due to reinforcement corrosion.

Three phases are considered in the process, i.e.

crack initiation phase, crack propagation phase and
residual life phase. The crack initiation phase starts
from the time of construction and ends at the time
when the corrosion induced cracking initiates at the
interface between the steel rebar and the concrete
cover. After cracking occurs at the interface, the
bond strength between the steel reinforcement and
the surrounding concrete starts decreasing, and the

533

where w is the tensile stress crossing cohesive

cracks, ft is the tensile strength of concrete, and W is
dimensionless variable that normalises actual crack
width w(r) to a non-dimensional form and defined as
W f t w(r ) / GF in which G F is the fracture energy
of concrete. The coefficients a and b in Eq. (4) for
the bilinear softening curve are given by

efficient (i.e. the ratio of the depth of non-uniform

corrosion to that of uniform corrosion) does not exceed 2. The uniform corrosion of reinforcement in
concrete then could be utilised for the cases with relatively small corrosion distribution coefficients, as
shown in many studies such as Chernin et al. (2010)
and Pantazopoulou and Papoulia (2001).
Based on the assumption that the steel rebar has
uniform corrosion at the surface, the thick-walled
cylinder model for cover concrete cracking can be
considered as an axisymmetrical problem. The thickwalled cylinder model could be further treated as a
plane stress problem because the normal tensionsoftening stress in the direction of longitudinal axis
could be ignored (Pantazopoulou and Papoulia,
2001), although the approach discussed here can also be applied to a plane strain problem. Therefore,
the hoop stress in the cylinder is typically a principle
tensile stress whereas the radial stress is a principle
compressive stress. When the hoop stress reaches
the tensile strength of concrete, the radial splitting
cracks propagate from the bond interface in axisymmetrical directions to the free surface of concrete cover (Rc). As corrosion progresses the cover
concrete becomes completely cracked in the cover.

a a cr 1 , b b cr

(1 )
,
Wcr

if 0 W Wcr
a au

(5a)

Wu

(Wu Wcr )
if Wcr W Wu

, b bu

(Wu Wcr )

,
(5b)

where coefficient , normalised critical crack width

Wcr and normalised ultimate cohesive crack width
Wu may be determined from experiments. In the
CEB-FIB Model Code (CEB, 1990), the coefficient
is given as 0.15 and Wcr and Wu could be
evaluated from the maximum aggregate size of concrete materials, with typical values of Wcr =
0.02~0.05mm and Wu = 0.1~0.3mm.
From the crack band theory for the fracture of
concrete (Baant and Planas, 1998), the total number
of cracks nc separating cracking bands in concrete
cover and appearing at cover surface (Rc) may be estimated from nc 2Rc / Lc in which Lc is minimum admissible crack band width estimated from
Lc 3d a in which d a is maximum aggregate size of
concrete. The typical value of total crack number
nc in the thick-walled cylinder model for cover concrete cracking is approximately three or four from
the experimental data available.
The total hoop strain of the cracked concrete
f
consists of fracture strain and linear elastic strain
e
between cracks . The fracture strain is generated
by a total number of nc cracks whereas the linear
elastic strain between cracks is associated with the
residual tensile hoop stress , defined as

2.2 Concrete cracking model

Concrete cracking could be modelled as a process of
tensile softening if the cracking is considered as cohesive and the crack width does not exceed a limited
value (Baant and Planas, 1998). In cohesive crack
model for quasi-brittle materials such as concrete,
the stress transferred through the cohesive cracks is
assumed to be a function of the crack opening
(Hillerborg et al., 1976). It has been shown that the
bilinear softening curve has been accepted as reasonable approximations of the function for cracked
concrete in tension.
ft

nc w(r )
f W
bl0 t
(6a)
2r
E r

f
e t (a bW )
(6b)
E
E
where material coefficient l0 nc lch / 2b in which
2
l ch is characteristic length lch EG F / f t defined in
Hillerborg et al. (1976). The total hoop strain of
the cracked concrete is then given by

Tensile stress, w

ft
0

Wcr

Normalised crack width, W

Wu

f e

Figure 2. Bilinear softening for cohesive cracking in concrete.

(a bW ) bl 0 r

(7)

The radial displacement u of the cracked concrete

is then calculated from

The bilinear softening curve adopted in the present study is shown in Fig. 2 and expressed as

w f t (a bW )

ft
E

(4)

534

u r

ft
(a bW )r bl0W
E

3 CRACK EVOLUTION

(8)

3.1 Time-to-crack on concrete cover

and the radial strain is given by

du f t
r

dr E

dW

(a bW ) b(l 0 r ) dr

To estimate the time required by the cracks to propagate up to concrete surface across the cover, crack
front with width of zero is assumed at the cover surface ( Rc ). From Eq. (8), the displacement boundary
condition at bar surface ( Rb ) can be rewritten as the
boundary condition for the normalised crack width.
In general, the thick-walled cylinder is divided into
two zones, a cracked outer ring where crack width

does not exceed critical value ( rcr r Rc ) and a

cracked inner ring where crack width exceeds criti
cal value ( Rb r rcr ). For the cracked outer ring,
considering the critical crack width at the internal

boundary ( rcr ), the boundary conditions for the

cracked outer ring are

(9)

The reduction factor of residual tensile stiffness

can be expressed as

e
e

f 1

1
bl 0W
(a bW )r

(10)

The stiffness in radial direction E r is assumed to

equal the initial stiffness E of concrete because the
radial stress is typically in compression for the problem considered. By using the approximation r r , the stress and strain relations for
the boundary-value problem could be rewritten as

W |r r Wcr , W | r Rc 0

From Eq. (14), the normalised crack width within

the cracked outer ring is then given by

E
(11)
r
( r )
1 2
The governing equation for cracked concrete
modelled as anisotropic elastic continuum (Pantazopoulou and Papoulia 2001) can be expressed as

(l 0 cr , r ) (l0 cr , Rc )
W
Wcr
(l0 cr , rcr ) (l 0 cr , Rc )

(12)

By introducing the radial displacement u given in

Eq. (8), the governing equation can now be rewritten
in terms of the normalised crack width W as
d 2W
1 dW
(l 0 3r )
0
(13)
2
r dr
dr
The general solution of the above differential
equation can be expressed as

l0 r
1
1
2 ln
l 0 (l 0 r ) l 0
r

(18)

(l0 cr , rcr ) (l0 cr , Rc )

(14)

1
1
cr
1 Rc (l0 Rc )

(19)

For the cracked inner ring, where the crack width

exceeds the critical value, from Eq (8) the normalised crack width at its internal boundary is given by

where constant coefficients C1 and C 2 in the general solution can be determined from two boundary
conditions of the boundary-value problem. (l0 , r )
is a crack width function associated with material
coefficient l0 and radius r within the concrete cover
is defined as

(l0 , r )

r Rc

the radial stress r at the free surface can be obtained from Eq. (11) in which =1. Therefore, the
critical crack front rcr between the outer ring and the
inner ring can be obtained from

(l 0 r )

W C1 (l0 , r ) C2

(17)

Assuming the surface at the concrete cover is

free, i.e. free surface for the external boundary of the
thick-walled cylinder mode

d u 1 du
u

2 0
2
r dr
dr
r

(16)

cr

Wb (t )

u b (t ) a u Rb
Rb ) f t

b u (l 0

(20)

where material coefficient l0 nc lch / 2b u . The

boundary conditions for the cracked inner ring are
u

(15)

W | r Rb Wb (t ) , W |r r Wcr
u

(21)

cr

Once the normalised crack width is obtained from

Eq. (14), the actual crack width and crack growth at
various stages can be evaluated.

Therefore, the normalised crack width within the

cracked inner ring is given by
W

(l0 u , r ) (l0 u , rcr ) u (l0 u , Rb ) (l0 u , r )

Wb
Wcr
(l0 u , Rb ) (l0 u , rcr )
(l0 u , Rb ) (l0 u , rcr )
(22)

Meanwhile, the condition of radial stress continuity at the critical crack boundary ( rcr ) between the
cracked outer ring and the cracked inner ring gives
535

 r | r r r | r r

cr

where the normalised crack width at the internal

u
boundary Wb is calculated from Eq. (20). When
cracks in the cover concrete reach the ultimate cohesive width, the cracks become cohesionless and no
residual strength exists in the cracked cover concrete. From Eq. (28), it can be seen that cracks at
both the internal and external boundaries reach the
ultimate cohesive width at the same time ( Tu ). The
displacement at the internal boundary at time Tu is
calculated from Eq. (10). The mass of rust products
at time Tu is obtained from

(23)

cr

By using the radial stress described in Eq. (11),

the normalised crack width at the internal boundary
at the time to cracking on cover surface ( Tc ) is obtained from
1 (l 0 rcr )[ (l0 , Rb ) (l 0 , rcr )]
u

Wb (Tc ) Wcr
u

(l 0 cr rcr )[ (l0 cr , rcr ) (l 0 cr , ry )]

(Wu Wcr )

(24)
From Eq. (24), the corresponding displacement at
the internal boundary of the thick-walled cylinder at
time Tc can be determined from Eq. (20). By using
Eq. (3), the mass of rust products at time Tc is calculated from

M r (Tc ) a u Rb b u (l0 Rb )Wb (Tc )

u

Ef 2R
t

u b (Tu )

Wu
Wu Wcr

ft u
l0
E

(29)

Similarly, from Eq. (3) the mass of rust products

at time Tu is calculated from

(25)

M r (Tu )

Consequently, the time to cracking Tc can be estimated from Eq. (1). It can be seen that the time to
cracking is a function of concrete cover dimensions,
material properties of cover concrete and reinforcement corrosion rate.

l 0 uWu f t 2Rb
Wu Wcr E m

(30)

The time at the end of cohesive cracking stage Tu

can be then estimated from Eq. (1).
4 DAMAGE PROGNOSIS

3.2 Concrete cover crack growth

The symptom-base reliability was proposed by
Cempel et al. (2000) initially for diesel engines, and
recently further extended to be used for civil engineering structures (Ceravolo et al. 2008). In symptom-based system performance evaluation, the reliability is assumed to be dependent of measurable
quantities, i.e. symptom. The system and its components fail to meet the designed requirements when a
symptom exceeds a given limit value Sl. Symptom
reliability R(S) for a critical system in operation is
defined as the probability associated with a symptom
S.
For reinforced concrete structures subject to aggressive environments, the corrosion-induced cracking of the cover concrete can be used for a symptom
to evaluate the symptom-based reliability. This
symptom-based reliability is then adopted for damage diagnosis for reinforced concrete structures affected by reinforcement corrosion, when the evolution of the symptom is available.
In general, there are two basic system lifetime
distribution models used in symptom based reliability analysis, Weibull and Frechet models. The
Weibull model is often used for structural capacity
deterioration caused by structural damage (Ceravolo
et al. 2008). In this study, the Weibull model adopted for concrete cracking evolution is assumed as
~
~)
w
t (w
(31)
[ ln(1
)]1 /
wl
tb

After the crack front reaches the external surface, the

concrete cover becomes completely cracked. A single cracked zone is considered for the thick-walled
cylinder in general and the crack width over the concrete cover is assumed to exceed the critical value.
The boundary conditions for this case are given by

W |r Rb Wb , W |r Rc Wc
u

(26)

From Eq. (14), the normalised crack width within

the cracked concrete cover is expressed as
W

(l0 u , r ) (l0 u , Rc ) u (l0 u , Rb ) (l0 u , r )

Wb
Wc
(l0 u , Rb ) (l0 u , Rc )
(l0 u , Rb ) (l0 u , Rc )
(27)

To determine the unknown Wc , the free surface

condition at the external boundary ( Rc ) described in
Eq. (18) is adopted. The radial stress at the external
boundary can be calculated from Eq. (11) by using
the stiffness reduction factor in Eq. (10). Poissons
effect associated with the hoop strain can be ignored
because the surrounding concrete cover is completely cracked. From the free surface condition at the external surface (Rc), the normalised crack width at the
concrete surface Wc is given by
1 Rc (l 0 Rc )[ (l 0 , Rb ) (l 0 , Rc )]
u

Wc

Wu
Wb

1 Rc (l 0 Rc )[ (l 0 , Rb ) (l 0 , Rc )]
u

Wb

(28)

where >0 is the scale parameter; > 0 is the shape

parameter; tb is the systems design life; the initial

536

The symptom reliability is then calculated from

~
~
~) exp w h( )d exp[ ( w ) ]
(33)
R( w
0

wl

0.10
Critical corrosion penetration, mm

symptom is S 0 wl in which wl is allowable concrete crack width. The symptom hazard function for
the adopted Weibull model is expressed as
~
~) [ w ] 1
(32)
h( w
wl wl

The remaining useful life for the reinforced structures can be predicted from
~
~)t exp[ ( w ) ]t
t rul R( w
b
b
wl

Prediction by this study

0.09

Torres-Acosta & Sagues 2004, Long anode length

0.08

Torres-Acosta & Sagues 2004, Ref [4] - [7].

0.07

Torres-Acosta & Sagues 2004, Ref [8].

Torres-Acosta & Sagues 2004, Ref [9].

0.06
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0.00

(34)

Cover-to-bar diameter

In the case when the hazard function is propor~,

tional to the single measured system symptom w
the hazard function associated the difference between the predictions and the real measured data
may be expressed as

Figure 3. Critical corrosion penetration (tcr) of steel reinforcement as a function of concrete cover-to-rebar diameter ratio
(C/Db), compared with the available experimental data in
Torres-Acosta & Sagues (2004).

~
~, L) h ( w
~) L h ( w
~) wm
h( w
0
0
wl

The results in Fig. 3 show the critical corrosion

penetration (tcr) at the time required by cracks to
reach the fee surface as a function of concrete coverto-rebar diameter ratio (C/Db). In order to minimise
the influence of localised steel corrosion on the critical corrosion penetration, experimental results in
Torres-Acosta and Sagues (2004) with cover-toanode length ratio less than 0.18 are adopted in the
study. Then, the results predicted by the proposed
method are plotted for comparing with the available
experimental data. From Fig. 3, the predicted critical
corrosion penetration increases as the cover-to-rebar
diameter ratio increases, agreeing well with the previous experimental results.

(35)

~ / w .
where L is a logistic vector defined as L w
l
The system reliability with consideration of difference between measured data and predicted results is
rewritten as
~

w
~, L) |
~))
R( w
ln( R0 ( w

L0 L R0 ( S ) 1

w
l

(36)

It is obvious that the symptom reliability will

change depending on the difference between the
~w
~ w
~.
measured and predicted crack widths, w
m
5 NUMERICAL EXAMPLE

100.00

A steel reinforced concrete structure exposed to an

aggressive environment with a service life of 75
years is now utilized to demonstrate the applicability
of the proposed damage prognosis approach. The reinforcing steel bars of a diameter of 16mm are embedded into concrete structural elements with an average clear cover thickness of 39mm. The material
properties for the cover concrete utilized in this
study are taken as compressive strength
f c 31.5MPa , tensile strength f t 3.3MPa , elastic
modulus of concrete E 27GPa , Poissons ratio 0.18 , concrete creep coefficient assumed
here 1 , density of corrosion rust products
r 3600kg / m 3 , density of steel s 7850kg / m 3 ,
and coefficient 0.57 (Liu and Weyers, 1998).
Other material properties adopted in the predictions
are evaluated from the given concrete properties
with assumed maximum aggregate size d a 25mm ,
such as fracture energy G f 83N / m , total crack
number nc 4 , critical crack width wcr 0.05mm ,
and ultimate cohesive crack width wu 0.2mm .

Equivalent crack width, mm

10.00

Prediction by this study

Torres-Acosta & Martinez-Madrid 2003,Columns
Torres-Acosta & Martinez-Madrid 2003,Beams
Torres-Acosta & Martinez-Madrid 2003
Torres-Acosta & Martinez-Madrid 2003, Cylinders
Rodriguez et al. 1997, Pull out
Torres-Acosta et al. 2003, Slabs
Torres-Acosta et al. 2007, Beams
Vidal et al. 2004, Natural corrosion

1.00

0.10

0.01
0.001

0.010
Corrosion penetration rate

0.100

~ ) as a function of corroFigure 4. Equivalent crack width ( w

sion penetration rate (tr/r0), compared with the experimental
data from accelerated and natural corrosion tests in TorresAcosta and Martinez-Madrid (2003) and Vidal et al. (2004).

537

The results in Fig. 4 are for the equivalent crack

~ ) over time as a function of the corrosion
width ( w
penetration rate ( t r / r0 ). The predicted results are then
compared with previous experimental investigations
obtained from accelerated or natural corrosion tests
in concrete (Torres-Acosta and Martinez-Madrid
2003; Vidal et al. 2004). Here again, the predicted
results for the crack growth in the cover due to corrosion agree well with the available experimental data.
Fig. 5 gives results for lifetime evolution of corrosion-induced concrete cracking predicted by the
Weibull model, which are compared with the measurements simulated by the analytical solutions, in
the case with corrosion rate of 2.33A/cm2. The
simulated measurements indicate that the crack
width at the concrete cover surface wc increases abruptly when crack front reaches the free cover surface at the time of 1.83 years due to sudden release
of energy. After the time to cracking, the crack
width at the cover surface wc increases gradually
and becomes ultimate cohesive width at the time of
42.9 years. From the results, the scale parameter
=1.8 and shape parameter =2.0 of the Weibull
model are determined to best match the simulated
measurements.

1.0

Symtom reliabity

0.9

0.8
dw/w0 = -0.5
dw/w0 = -0.2
dw/w0 = 0.0

0.7

dw/w0 = +0.2
dw/w0 = +0.5
0.6
0

10

15
Time, year

20

25

30

Figure 6. Symptom based reliability varying over time and influenced by monitoring symptom data.

The remaining useful life is then predicted from

the estimated symptom reliability, as shown in Fig.
7. From these results, it can be seen that the difference between the predicted data and monitored
symptom data has an obvious influence on the remaining useful life, reducing from 45 year for the
correct predictions to 33.5 year for the symptom difference of 0.5 after 30 year service of the structure.

1.0

Weibull model estimate

70

0.8

Analytical prediction

60

Remaining useful life, year

Equivalent crack width, mm

1.2

0.6

0.4
0.2
0.0
0

Tc

10

15

20
25
Time, year

30

35

50
dw/w0 = -0.5
40

dw/w0 = -0.2
dw/w0 = 0.0

30

dw/w0 = +0.2
20

dw/w0 = +0.5

10

40

0
0

Figure 5. Comparison of symptom evolution by analytical solution and Weibull model.

10

15
Time, year

20

25

30

Figure 7. Estimated remaining useful lifetimes varying over

time and influenced by monitoring symptom data.

The symptom reliability varying over time and

influenced by monitoring symptom data is plotted in
Fig. 6. The reliability decreases with time due to the
evolution of corrosion-induced concrete cracking.
When the real monitored data are different from the
predictions by the Weibull model, the symptom reliability will be affected by the difference. The results
also show the symptom reliability decreases when
monitored crack width exceeds the prediction. On
the other hand, the reliability increases when the
monitored data is below the prediction. This shows
that the corrosion-induced crack width has influence
on the symptom reliability, and the reliability needs
to be adjusted on the basis of real measurements.

6 CONCLUSION
On the basis of the results from the numerical example involving the damage diagnosis for the concrete
structures affected by reinforcement carrion, the following conclusions are noted:
1) The proposed analytical model including realistic softening concrete properties can correctly predict the time-to-crack and the growth of rebar corrosion-induced cover concrete cracking.

538

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crack formation and crack growth in concrete by means of
fracture mechanics and finite element. Cement and Concrete Research, 6(6): 773-782.
Jang, B. S., Oh, B. H. 2010. Effects of non-uniform corrosion
on the cracking and service life of reinforced concrete
structures. Cement and Concrete Research, 40(9): 14411450.
Liu, Y., Weyers, R. E. 1998. Modelling the time-to-corrosion
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2) The Weibull distribution can be used for modelling concrete cracking evolution if appropriate
shape and scale parameters are chosen.
3) The symptom reliability needs to be adjusted
by the real monitored data to reflect the difference
between the real monitored data and the analytical
predicted results.
4) The remaining useful life largely depends on
the time passed and the difference between the monitored and predicted data.
The present research focuses on reinforced concrete cover cracking, however the bond strength at
the interface between rebar and the surrounding concrete should be considered for evaluating the performance of aging reinforced concrete structures in
the future. also, special issues of reinforcement corrosion, such as strongly deviating local behavior,
different stages, forms of corrosion products and the
kinetics of corrosion should be considered in further
studies.
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