Structural reliability of reinforced concrete buildings under earthquakes and corrosion effects

The corrosion process due to the erosion of chloride ions on reinforced concrete (RC) buildings is analyzed in this paper. The main objective of this study is to determine the influence of the corrosion on structural reliability of reinforced concrete buildings under earthquakes. It is assumed that the buildings are located in the city of Acapulco Guerrero in Mexico, and a comparison of the structural reliability when the resistance of the structural members of the buildings under earthquakes is affected by corrosion and when not is computed. In addition, the influence of concrete cover is considered. For the objective of this study, the buildings are modeled as 3D RC frames and they are subjected to several earthquake ground motion records. Furthermore, the analyses are performed by the Monte Carlo simulation technique and stochastic modelling of corrosion initiation, corrosion propagation and corrosion cracking to estimate the steel corrosion. It is shown that omitting the effect of corrosion in reinforced concrete structures can lead to erroneous estimations of the structural reliability of buildings under earthquakes.