Strain field of reinforced concrete under accelerated corrosion by digital image correlation technique

Abstract

The strain evolution and crack pattern of reinforced concrete attacked by accelerated corrosion have been studied using strain gauges and the digital image correlation (DIC) technique. Results show that there was good consistency between DIC and the classical strain gauges in the strain evolution of corroding reinforced concrete. Moreover, the strain field and crack behaviour of reinforced concrete could be tracked by DIC image pattern intuitively and its stress could also be calculated by DIC quantitatively. However, the micro-deformation of reinforced concrete could not be obtained by DIC because of its test accuracy. When reinforced concrete was attacked by accelerated corrosion, the expansion stress was applied to the upper zone of reinforced bar, and the compressive stress was applied to its bottom zone. And the failure model of reinforced concrete was mainly in a brittle manner.