Service life prediction of reinforced concrete structures

This paper is focused on the estimation of durability and service life of reinforced concrete structures. Assuming that the chloride ion in concrete can be absorbed on tricalcium aluminate, calcium silicate hydrate, and by other constituents of hardened cement paste, hydrated or not, the exact analytical solution of the governing partial differential equation together with its boundary and initial conditions can be obtained through nondimensional parameters and Laplace's transform. When the results of an exact analytical solution using suitable parameters were compared with the results of previous experimental work, the differences were found to be very small. This suggests that the absorption model is of considerable value. The exact analytical solution with the saturation parameter and time and diffusion coefficients under different effective electrical potential could be used to predict both the experimental results and the service life of reinforced concrete structures. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.