Experimental investigation on the flexural behaviour of stainless steel reinforced concrete beams

The durability of reinforced concrete (RC) structures and infrastructure has been the subject of significant attention from the engineering research community in recent years, mainly owing to the deterioration of RC elements due to corrosion of the embedded steel reinforcement. In this context, stainless steel reinforcement can provide an efficient solution to enhance the expected lifetime of concrete structures, reducing the damage due to corrosion of the reinforcement and carbonation and deterioration of the concrete. However, current international design standards for reinforced concrete structures do not include appropriate guidance for stainless steel reinforced concrete (SSRC). In order to investigate the behaviour of stainless steel RC beams, a series of six beam tests was conducted and is discussed herein. The key performance measures for RC beams such as load-deflection response, cracking behaviour and deflections at service load are assessed. The validity and applicability of existing design rules, which were developed for carbon steel RC, are also examined for stainless steel reinforced concrete members. Other recently developed design procedures, based on the Continuous Strength Method and including an accurate material model for the stainless steel bars, are also examined.

This is an Accepted Manuscript version of the following article, accepted for publication in Structure and Infrastructure Engineering. It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.