Corrosion initiation time models in RC coastal structures based on reliability approach

The present work proposes new engineering models for determining corrosion initiation time in concrete reinforcing steels in marine environment. The models are based on Fick\'s second law that is commonly used for chloride diffusion. The latter is based on deterministic analyses involving the most influencing parameters such as distance of the concrete structure from the seaside, depth of steel concrete cover, ambient temperature, relative humidity and the water-cement ratio. However, a realistic corrosion initiation time cannot be estimated because of the uncertainties associated to the different parameters of the models. Therefore a reliability approach using FORM/SORM method has been applied to develop the proposed engineering models integrating a limit state function and a reliability index B. As a result, the corrosion initiation time is expressed by new exponential engineering models where the uncertainties are associated to the model parameters. The main emerging result is a realistic decision tool for corrosion planning inspection.