Modeling spatial variability of steel corrosion using Gumbel distribution

Abstract

Performance of corrosion-affected RC structures depends on the spatial variability of steel corrosion of reinforcing bars. The effect of spatial variability of steel corrosion on the remaining service life of concrete structures is significant. In this paper, an experimental study was conducted to investigate the effect of current density on the spatial variability of steel corrosion. This variability is modeled using Gumbel distribution derived from experiments and incorporated with FE method to estimate the yield loading capacity of RC beams. The results show that using Gumbel distribution parameters derived from the specimens with high current density may lead to an overestimation of load capacity of corroded RC beams.