Prediction of the Chloride

Ingress into Concrete

 Aggressive chloride ions
penetrate the concrete
cover

Corrosion of the steel

reinforcement

Inspiration Need to design for service

life in a more efficient way
of the
research
project
Development of mathematical
models that predict the chloride
ingress into concrete
 Types of models that
Emprirical and
predict the chloride
Physical models
ingress

Model
implementation to
fib (emprirical),
Research ClinConc (physical)
produce chloride
ingress profiles over

Outline
time

Validity and
accuracy of
predictions by
comparison with
actual field data
Challenges

1 2 3
Very complex and Environmental Implementation of
technical subject applicability the mathematical
expressions

Extensive research Development of Improved IT skills

coefficient to
account for
randomness
Findings
 Effective time
Acquired management
Research skills Data handling Resilience

strengths
and skills
Thank you!
Conclusions
 As we saw from the field data, chloride ingress posses a very serious danger
especially for submerged conditions and therefore it should be considered
as a great factor when designing for service life.
 From the sensitivity assessment it was concluded that the parameters with
higher sensitivity should be used with extra caution and accuracy as they
can affect the prediction of the chloride concentration and can lead to
erroneous results.
 From the comparison between the field data and the predictions made by
the two models, as the value of time was increased the predictions were
becoming worse. Thus, better calibration of the prediction models against
longer periods of time is essential, but it’s a difficult procedure due to the
lack of field data of long exposure periods.
 From the comparison between the two models the results obtained from
ClinConc weren’t very satisfying considering it’s sophisticated design and
principles, comparing to the more simple design of fib. This is probably due
to a margin of error of the environmental temperature of the structural
member that the samples were collected, since the model is very sensitive
to temperature change.
Where:
 cf: is the free chloride concentration
 cb: is the bound chloride concentration
 ε: is the water accessible porosity at the age after the exposure
 Bc: is the cementitious binder content in kg/m3 concrete
 ft: is the time-dependent factor for chloride binding
 t : time of exposure in years
 n: is the age factor
 at: is the time-dependent factor of chloride binding
 tex: the age of concrete at the beginning of exposure
 fb and βb: are chloride binding constants
 D6m: The Chloride diffusion coefficient measured by the standard
migration method NT BUILD 492 at the age of 6 months
 kOH: is an alkalinity factor
 ”6m”: is the concrete’s age at 6 months
 kTb: is the temperature factor for chloride binding
 cs: the free surface-chloride content
 kTD: is the activation energy of diffusion coefficient
 Wgel: is the gel content in kg/m3 concrete
Where:
 Ccrit : is the critical chloride content (% by mass of cement)
 C(𝑥= a,t) is the chloride concentration (% by mass of cement) in the concrete at depth x and time t
 𝑥 : is the depth with a responsive chloride concentration C(x,t) in mm
 t: is the time in years
 Cs : is the chloride surface concentration at a certain point of time t (% by mass of cement)
 erf: is the error function
 Dapp,C : is the apparent chloride diffusion coefficient in concrete in m2/sec
 ke : environmental transfer variable
 be : is the regression variable in Kelvin
 Tref : is the standard test temperature in Kelvin
 Treal : is the actual temperature of the structural component or the ambient air in Kelvin
 DRCM,0 : is the chloride migration coefficient in m2/sec
 A(t): is the aging function
 t0 : is the reference point of time in years (usually 28 days)
 t: is the chloride exposure time in years
 α: is the age exponent