Title:
Service Life of Reinforced Concrete Structures in Coastal Environments
Author(s):
Ceki Halmen, David Trejo, Momn Telfah
Publication:
Symposium Paper
Volume:
366
Issue:
Appears on pages(s):
141-155
Keywords:
Corrosion, service life, marine environment, probabilistic, allowable chlorides, exposure conditions
DOI:
Date:
10/1/2025
Abstract:
Corrosion of reinforcement is a common deterioration problem for reinforced concrete structures at coastal areas causing early failure, increased maintenance costs, and significant safety problems. This paper combines a wellestablished diffusion-based service life estimation method with recently developed data-driven models on surface
chloride concentration accumulation and critical chloride threshold distribution data to probabilistically analyze the effect of design parameters such as water-cement ratio (w/c), cover depth, and admixed chloride content in various coastal exposure zones. Results indicate that the used probabilistic analysis can result in changes to estimated service
life values by an order of magnitude. Although w/c and cover depth were the most significant factors affecting the service life, parameters such as wind speed, temperature, exposure zone, and distance from the coast were identified as influencing the service life of coastal structures.