Influence of pits characteristics on the failure mode of viaduct in service steel rebars

In the present work, the failure mode of rebars extracted from a reinforced concrete viaduct suffering corrosion in Spain has is studied. It has been confirmed the validity of the strategy based on performing hardness sweeps along a diameter of the bars for determining the mode of failure suffered i...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Ruiz-Menéndez, G., Lauvergeat, A., Peña, C., Fernández, Ricardo
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/424982
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/424982
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Fracture
Rebar
Mechanical properties
Ductility
Pitting defects
Descripción
Sumario:In the present work, the failure mode of rebars extracted from a reinforced concrete viaduct suffering corrosion in Spain has is studied. It has been confirmed the validity of the strategy based on performing hardness sweeps along a diameter of the bars for determining the mode of failure suffered in service. The same number of rebars extracted from the bridges have failed by plastic collapse or fatigue considering two viaducts suffering corrosion problems. The synergistic effect of corrosion and stress hardening explains how pits location along the bar diameter influences the mode of failure. Large pits close to the longitudinal ribs in the non-parallel ribs side generate a plastic collapse failure according to FEM (Finite Element Modelling) calculations. Fatigue failure is mainly related to the hydrogen concentration associated to pits position. These findings have been obtained from tensile tests between 5.0*10sand 2.4*10s-1 strain rates and fatigue tests between 5 and 30 kN. The main contribution of this work is the combination of stress concentration and hydrogen concentration in order to explain tilted fractures (brittle and ductile) in rebars of reinforced concrete bridges in service.