Prediction of chloride diffusion in concrete structure using meshless methods

Abstract

Degradation of RC structures due to chloride penetration followed by reinforcement corrosion is a serious problem in civil engineering. The numerical simulation methods at present mainly involve finite element methods (FEM), which are based on mesh generation. In this study, element-free Galerkin (EFG) and meshless weighted least squares (MWLS) methods are used to solve the problem of simulation of chloride diffusion in concrete. The range of a scaling parameter is presented using numerical examples based on meshless methods. One- and two-dimensional numerical examples validated the effectiveness and accuracy of the two meshless methods by comparing results obtained byMWLS with results computed by EFG and FEM and results calculated by an analytical method. A good agreement is obtained among MWLS and EFG numerical simulations and the experimental data obtained from an existing marine concrete structure. These results indicate that MWLS and EFG are reliable meshless methods that can be used for the prediction of chloride ingress in concrete structures.