Load carrying capacity of deteriorated reinforced concrete columns

This paper presents a new methodology to evaluate the load carrying capacity of deteriorated non-slender concrete bridge pier columns by construction of the full P-M interaction diagrams. The proposed method incorporates the actual material properties of deteriorated columns, and accounts for amount of corrosion and exposed corroded bar length, concrete loss, loss of concrete confinement and strength due to stirrup deterioration, bond failure, and type of stresses in the corroded reinforcement. The developed structural model and the damaged material models are integrated in a spreadsheet for evaluating the load carrying capacity for different deterioration stages and/or corrosion amounts. Available experimental and analytical data for the effects of corrosion on short columns subject to axial loads combined with moments (eccentricity induced) are used to verify the accuracy of proposed model. It was observed that, for the limited available experimental data, the proposed model is conservative and is capable of predicting the load carrying capacity of deteriorated reinforced concrete columns with reasonable accuracy. The proposed analytical method will improve the understanding of effects of deterioration on structural members, and allow engineers to qualitatively assess load carrying capacity of deteriorated reinforced concrete bridge pier columns.