Seismic Response of RC Frames Affected by Carbonation-Induced Corrosion

In Europe, the vast majority of RC structures is characterized by a lack in both material quality and structural detailing, which significantly influences their seismic behaviour. Furthermore, a huge number of them may be affected by severe material degradation phenomena, since classical procedures adopted in concrete structures design have often failed to achieve sufficiently durable performances. Nowadays, code provisions towards durability rely on some “deemed-to-satisfy” rules concerning the values of concrete cover and of concrete strength to be adopted. The present paper reports a parametric study on the time-dependent variation of structural seismic reliability due to carbonation-induced corrosion. To this aim, a simple and explicit procedure has been applied. Such procedure involves a mechanically-consistent implementation of carbonation-induced effects and requires the use of nonlinear static (Pushover) analyses, although it is possible to extend its use to different degradation phenomena and to the use of nonlinear dynamic analyses.