Load-carrying capacity degradation of reinforced concrete piers due to corrosion of wrapped steel plates

Two-dimensional elastoplastic finite element formulation is employed to investigate the load- carrying capacity degradation of reinforced concrete piers wrapped with steel plates due to occurrence of corrosion at the pier base. By comparing with experimental results, the employed finite element analysis method is verified to be accurate. After that, a series of parametric studies are conducted to investigate the effect of corrosion ratio and corrosion mode of steel plates located near the base of in-service pier P2 on load-carrying capacity of the piers. It is observed that the load-carrying capacity of the piers decreases with the increase in corrosion ratio of steel plates. There exists an obvious linear relationship between the load-carrying capacity and the corrosion ratio in the case of even corrosion mode. The degradation of load-carrying capacity resulted from the web\'s uneven corrosion mode is more serious than that under even corrosion mode, and the former case is more liable to occur than the latter case in actual engineering application. Finally, the failure modes of the piers under different corrosion state are discussed. It is found that the principal tensile strain of concrete and yield range of steel plates are distributed within a wide range in the case of slight corrosion, and they are concentrated on the column base when complete corrosion occurs. The findings obtained from the present study can provide a useful reference for the maintenance and strengthening of the in-service piers.