IMPACT BEHAVIOR OF CONCRETE BEAMS WITH CORRODING REINFORCING STEEL

This thesis presents an analytical and experimental investigation
of the remaining impact strength of concrete beams with corroding
reinforcement. Concrete beams were subjected to impact using a
centrally loaded instrumented dropweight system. Three different
amounts of steel corrosion were used to simulate ten, twenty, and thirty
years of seawater exposure.
The first part in the analytical investigation involved the use of
the finite element code ADINA. The second included development of three
physical models; the first based on a beam impact equation of forced
vibration for a pin-ended beam with center span impact, the second a
two-degree-of-freedom model, and the third a three-degree-of-freedom
model taking into account the stiffness of the supports for the impacted
beam specimens.
The different analytical results showed good correlation with the
test values of the impact energies. Also, the energy values for the
different corrosion periods obtained from the ADINA analysis compared
well with experimental ones.