Experimental Investigation of Cs of Reinforced Concrete Structures in Sea Island Regions of Khanh Hoa (Viet Nam) Application on Service Life Prediction

Corrosion of steel rebar’s in reinforced concrete (RC) structures, known as main cause reducing their service life, could be significantly accelerated in maritime regions where environmental chlorine ions (Cl−) content is very high. The crucial phrase of corrosion phenomenon, initial corrosion phrase concerning the penetration of Cl− through concrete cover, depends deeply on the surface chlorine ions content (Cs). The Cs data should be gathered from in-situ structures. For this motivation, in this paper, experimental investigation on Cs is performed. The surface chlorine ions (Cs) content of RC structure is obtained by extrapolating experimental data gathered from in-situ RC samples in the tide zones of sea island regions of Khanh Hoa (Viet Nam). Then, using these estimated Cs at different ages, it is possible to establish empiric evolution of surface chlorine ions content versus the concrete age. Unlikely to constant value of Cs versus concrete age as practical routine, results of this paper show non-negligible time-dependence of Cs. And, based on experimental results in this paper, prediction of service life of constructions is performed by durability method. It is concluded that service life estimated by durability method is 4 times smaller than design working life of studied structures.