Corrosion-induced cracking of recycled aggregate concrete beams under static load

Abstract

To investigate the corrosion-induced cracking of recycled aggregate concrete beams under static load, twelve recycled aggregate concrete beams considering three types of recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) replacement ratios and four levels of static load were prepared and tested. The test results showed that the area of corrosion-induced cracking on the tension surface of the beams firstly increased when the static load level increased from 0 to 0.2, then decreased as the static load level increased from 0.2 to 0.4, thereafter increased until the static load level reached 0.6. The maximum width of longitudinal corrosion cracks had a strong linear relationship with corrosion duration and tended to increase with static load level and RCA replacement ratio. The lognormal distribution satisfactorily described the probability distribution of the width of longitudinal corrosion cracks. For the beams with a larger static load level, the degree of scatter of the crack width tended to increase, and the shape of the probability distribution curve tended to be flat. The research results are helpful to improve the durability design theory of recycled aggregate concrete beams under load and can play an important role in promoting the engineering application of recycled aggregate concrete beams.