Seismic Performance of Reinforced Concrete Columns in Corrosive Environment

Steel reinforcement corrosion has been recognized as a major issue for the performance and safety of reinforced concrete (RC) structures. This paper presents an experimental study carried out on six full-scale un-corroded and corroded RC short columns subjected to simulated seismic loadings to investigate the effects of reinforcement corrosion on the seismic behavior of short columns failed in shear. The main variables are the corrosion level of reinforcement and applied axial force ratio. The seismic behavior of test specimens was evaluated in terms of the crack pattern, hysteretic response, initial stiffness, shear strength, drift capacity, and energy dissipation capacity. The experimental results highlighted that the corroded RC columns displayed a significant degradation of shear strength and deformation capacity compared to un-corroded RC columns, especially when they are highly corroded and subjected to high axial load ratio.