查看文章

Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures are used predominantly in most construction practices, yet susceptible to damages under severe environmental conditions. Corrosion of rebars in concrete is caused by chloride ingress generating expansive strains around rebars resulting in surrounding concrete cracking, adversely affecting serviceability and durability of concrete. In field of structural maintenance, several techniques have been adopted for structural inspection namely, digital camera system and drone inspection etc. However, these tools only reveal surface conditions while the internal condition remains unidentified. Therefore, to develop a correlation between the internal and the surface damaged condition, a detailed scrutiny is required to consider the origin of cracks and their vulnerability causing concrete spalling. This research utilizes an experimental approach to investigate the effect of confinement provided by multi-directional reinforcement on corrosion cracking patterns. Three concrete panels of 600 x 600 x 150 mm were casted, having different rebar orientations and concrete cover. Accelerated Corrosion Test (ACT) setup has been used to induce faster corrosion cracking in concrete. The propagation of cracks was captured hourly by high resolution camera and analysed later. The results show a significant role of confinement by multiple and multi-directional reinforcement in controlling the corrosion cracks. The cracks obtained along outer rebars were wider than that of around central rebars due to absence of confinement to counterbalance the expansive force. This study also assists in understanding the corrosion cracking in the …