Design of Concrete Building Structure in Marine Corrosion Zones

Zhao, H.R., 2020. Design of concrete building structure in marine corrosion zones. In: Al-Tarawneh, O. and Megahed, A. (eds.), Recent Developments of Port, Marine, and Ocean Engineering. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 110, pp. 266–270. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.Building structures in offshore areas are extremely susceptible to chloride ion erosion in seawater or marine atmospheric environment, causing problems such as corrosion and swelling of steel rebar, spalling of concrete protective layer, etc., reducing the service life of the structure, and increasing the maintenance and operating costs of the structure. This paper attempts to enhance the design concrete building structures in the marine corrosion zones from the two aspects of durability and service life. To this end, it summarizes the principles of chloride ion erosion of reinforced concrete structures in coastal areas based on existing research, and explores the destruction mechanism of reinforced concrete structures under the action of chloride ions and external loads. Finally, the new method suitable for durability design of reinforced concrete structures in marine corrosion zone was proposed. The study found that the chloride-induced corrosion to the structure in the marine environment can cause the corrosion of the steel bars and accelerate the corrosion rate; a time-varying reliability model of the reinforced concrete structure was proposed; the increase in the thickness of the steel protective layer in the concrete can effectively improve the durability and service life of the structure. The research findings provide a theoretical basis for the durability design of concrete structures in offshore environments or marine corrosion zones.