Abstract

Prestressed high-strength concrete (PHC) piles have advantages of light weight and high load carrying capacity, which have been widely applied in coastal and offshore engineering. However, PHC piles serving in the coastal or offshore regions have already undergone severe durability problem. This paper presents a comprehensive method for predicting the service life of PHC piles in the marine environment, which reasonably takes the temperature effects and the concrete stratification caused by centrifugation of PHC piles into account. The pile service life is divided into the diffusion and corrosion periods. The service life of the diffusion period is predicted by solving the diffusion equation formulated for chloride ion diffusion in a two-layer ring medium, the results of which are compared with the data obtained from the elaborate experimental tests to examine the validity. The service life of the corrosion period is determined based on the ultimate corrosion expansion pressure produced by the accumulated corrosion products of steel bar. Various possible key factors, like protective cover thickness, initial chloride ion concentration, mortar layer thickness, etc., are considered to investigate how these parameters critically affect the pile service life. The results suggest that increasing mortar layer thickness can lead to a significant decrease of the service life in both diffusion and corrosion periods; and increasing protective cover thickness and sealing pile end are two effective ways to extend the service life of PHC piles.

Department(s)

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering

Comments

National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant 41772290

Keywords and Phrases

Corrosion expansion pressure; Diffusion equation; Durability; PHC pile; Service life; Stratification

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0950-0618

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2023 Elsevier, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

30 Aug 2020

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