CRACK EXTENSION DUE TO CORROSION BY SIGMA-AE AND BEM

Abstract

Concrete structures suffer from corrosion of reinforcing steel bars due to severe environments. A detailed study on crack extension due to corrosion of reinforcement in concrete is performed. Moment tensor analysis of acoustic emission (AE) can identify cracking kinematics of location, crack-type and crack orientation, by implementing SiGMA code. Visualization system has been developed by using VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language). Corrosion cracking was simulated by employing expansive agent in experiments. Nucleation of microcracks was thus identified by SiGMA-AE analysis. By applying the two-domain boundary element method (BEM), crack trajectory in the arbitrary direction was analyzed. Mechanisms of crack extension due to corrosion are investigated, applying the dimensionless stress intensity factors and comparing results by SiGMA-AE and BEM.