Steel corrosion induced cracking in reinforced concrete structures is related to the chloride ions, oxygen diffusion process and leads to cracking, which answers for one of the most common reasons of serviceability loss in reinforced concrete structures. Although extensively investigated, the monolithic formulation and solution solving the coupled chemical reaction boundary, diffusive flow field, as well as mechanical strain and fracture fields have been scarce. However, such formulation is critically needed to elucidate the complexity of the multi-physics coupling behind steel corrosion induced fracture in reinforced concrete structures.
In this study, a phase field formulation along with the numerical implementation have been presented. The governing equations are derived from the system free energy and Fick‚Äôs law of diffusion. The proposed formulation was firstly validated by comparing with 1D modeling results with the semi-analytical solution approximated using the Laurent expansions to avoid singularity in the complex domain. 2D plane strain solutions to the embedded rebar undergoing corrosion induced cracking with pre-cracks have also been presented and compared with the approximated solutions from linearly elastic fracture mechanics theory (LEFM) to validate the effectiveness of the formulation on modeling crack initiation and near-tip stress field. The crack propagation modeling enabled by the proposed formulation was also presented along with parametric studies to reveal the roles of fracture toughness and permeability of concrete in the corrosion induced cracking.


Hydro-Chemo-Mechanical Phase Field Formulation for Corrosion Induced Cracking in Reinforced Concrete

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