Steel corrosion on RC structures under sustained service loads - A critical review

This paper reviews previous studies carried out to investigate the effects of simultaneous load and steel corrosion on the rates of corrosion and the behaviour of RC structures. It highlights the need to perform corrosion tests on laboratory specimens whilst they are under a sustained load so as to better understand the behaviour of corroding in-service structures. Furthermore, it provides a critical discussion on loading systems previously used to corrode RC beams under load and key areas that need further research. The review showed that there were contrasting results on the effects of loading on the rate of corrosion and on corrosion crack widths. Corrosion under load was however found to significantly increase deflections of specimens. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, deflections showed that there was never a gain in stiffness during the corrosion process which is often observed at early corrosion stages on structures corroded in the absence of a sustained load.