For reinforced concrete structures exposed to marine environments or de-icing salts, chloride induced corrosion of reinforcing steel may be the major problem for durability. To assess the service life of reinforced concrete structures in such conditions, “chloride ion penetration analysis”, by which chloride ion diffusion coefficient or concentration profiles can be calculated, is needed.
Until now, however, most of chloride ion penetration analyses were concerned simplified cases only, e.q., saturated or pure diffusion conditions, but the effects of chloride binding or relative humidity and moisture diffusion in the concrete were seldom considered. In this study, various effects to the chloride ion penetration are considered : chloride binding, porosity change and humidity condition in the concrete, and advanced analysis methods for several environmental conditions are suggested.
By using proposed analysis method, chloride ion penetration behaviors can be estimated for the unsaturated conditions as well as saturated. Therefore, it is supposed that more practical conditions can be taken into account for chloride ion penetration analysis.
By means of more advanced experimental result, methodologies and assumptions used in this study need to be verified and modified in order to obtain more accurate analytical results.
