Durability Design of Concrete Structures

6Deterioration in Structural Contexts

This part contains only one chapter, treating the transition from knowledge at the material level, through ageing modeling, to the performance of structural concretes. “Structural concrete” refers to concrete material used in structures resisting various service loadings and actions during its service life. Different deterioration processes of concrete materials are investigated following their respective ageing mechanisms covered in Part 1 (Chapters 1–5). Actually, the service conditions of concrete structures, including the mechanical loads and environmental actions, can greatly alter the deterioration kinetics of the concrete materials. Further, as multiple ageing processes occur simultaneously, the deterioration mechanism can be different from a single process. It is from this perspective that this chapter finds its reason of being. In other terms, the ageing laws and models introduced in the previous chapters should be calibrated by the mechanical loadings and the actual environmental actions. This chapter treats successively the effect of loading and cracking, multi‐fields problems, and drying–wetting actions.

6.1 Loading and Cracking

The first aspect of the structural context is the mechanical loading. Structural materials, including concrete and steel, are subject to mechanical loading of different natures during their service life. The mechanical loadings have different effects on concrete and steel: concrete can exhibit brittleness ...