Corrosion Effects on the Mechanical Properties of Spun Pile Materials

Abstract

Prestressed concrete piles with closed-ended circular hollow sections (spun piles) are sometimes used as foundations for pile-supported wharves. Due to a reduction in the rebar area, concrete compressive strength, yield strength of PC-bar, and bond strength between PC-bar and concrete, corrosion attacks typically lower the performance of spun piles in the marine environment. A comprehensive analysis of the corrosion effect on the mechanical properties of the spun pile materials is crucial to assess the performance of corroded spun plies. Using a three-dimensional finite element analysis (FEA), this study aimed to evaluate the impact of corrosion on the mechanical properties of the material used in spun pile construction. We simulated the effect of nonuniformly distributed corrosion products using a volumetric strain expansion over 0–75 years. The FEA results provided the stress–strain relationship of the corroded spun pile materials and the bond–slip relationship between the corroded PC-bar and concrete. We proposed equations for predicting the deterioration degree of the mechanical properties of corroded spun pile materials and compared them to those presented in previous studies. It was shown that the compressive strength of the corroded cover concrete decreased significantly after the corrosion degree reached 12%, which the previous research had not expected. The bond strength reduction was inverse exponential against the elapsed years after the corrosion degree reached 1.3%. Moreover, the yield strength of PC-bars decreased linearly with the increase in the corrosion degree.