Current trends of durability design and government support in South Korea: Chloride attack

Abstract

Concrete is considered to be a construction material with high durability and excellent fire resistance. However, degradation occurs, leading to structural safety problems and expensive maintenance costs. Currently, durability design and its concepts are provided in the concrete specifications and structural design codes in many countries, but they vary in terms of the design methodologies and users' demands. Reinforced concrete (RC) structures based on a reasonable durability design with a quantitative procedure can prevent unnecessary maintenance expenses and reduce environmental loads. This paper presents the current trends of durability design in South Korea and government support for infrastructure. In this work, the two representative durability design philosophies (deterministic and probabilistic approaches) are briefly summarized, and the current guidelines and related requirements for durability design in several countries are investigated. Durability design is now changing from simple material requirement control to performance-based design with quantitative parameters considering various exposure classifications and evaluation processes. RC structures based on reasonable durability design can make a great contribution to reducing maintenance costs and environmental effects like CO2 emissions.