Influencia de la corrosión de las armaduras en la capacidad portante de las estructuras de hormigón armado

Influence of reinforcement corrosion on load-carrying capacity of concrete structures

The deveolpment of models allowing the residual service life of concrete structures with corroded reinforcement to be estimated is highly significant economically because these models will favour the election of the most suitable moment of repairing. Some papers have been published in the literautre dealing with different methos of estimating the residual service life of these structures, though most of them furnish merely qualitative general thoughts. This paper sets out an overview of how reinforcement corrosion may affect the structure's repsonse, remarking on aspects relating to the differentiation between Ultimate and Serviceability Limit States. Moreover, the study of load-carrying capacity loss in corroding structures is raised, furnishing some examples where the decrease of the design strength (bending moment, shear force and axial force) or reinforced concrete sections througth time is related to the corrosion intenstity value. The latter obtained by means of the concept of the "True Polarization Resistance" technique.