Influence of reinforcement's corrosion into hyperstatic reinforced concrete beams: a probabilistic failure scenarios analysis

This work aims to study the mechanical effects of reinforcement's corrosion in hyperstatic reinforced concrete beams. The focus is the probabilistic determination of individual failure scenarios change as well as global failure change along time. The limit state functions assumed describe analytically bending and shear resistance of reinforced concrete rectangular cross sections as a function of steel and concrete resistance and section dimensions. It was incorporated empirical laws that penalize the steel yield stress and the reinforcement's area along time in addition to Fick's law, which models the chloride penetration into concrete pores. The reliability theory was applied based on Monte Carlo simulation method, which assesses each individual probability of failure. The probability of global structural failure was determined based in the concept of failure tree. The results of a hyperstatic reinforced concrete beam showed that reinforcements corrosion make change into the failure scenarios modes. Therefore, unimportant failure modes in design phase become important after corrosion start.