Performance Evaluation and Improvement of Corroded Steel Structures

A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Building Structures".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 November 2023) | Viewed by 9795

Special Issue Editors

School of Civil Engineering, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an, China
Interests: steel structure; corrosion; corrosion detection; buckling; seismic performance; fatigue and fracture; structural reinforcement
Centre for Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering (CENTEC), Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal
Interests: marine structure; ocean platform; subsea pipe; corrosion; collision and grounding; ultimate strength; welding; photogrammetry
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
School of Civil Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China
Interests: integrated modular construction; fatigue and fracture; seismic design of steel structure
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
School of Mechanics and Civil Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China
Interests: steel structure; corrosion damage; fire safety; performance evaluation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Steel structures exposed to corrosive environments (e.g., marine, industrial, acid rain) for a long time inevitably suffer from corrosion even if some protective measures are taken. Corrosion may lead to the degradation of material and structural performance, such as bearing capacity, stability, seismic performance, fatigue life, etc., resulting in reduced reliability, shortened life, and even increased collapse risk. This produces an urgent need for the methodologies/technologies of safety evaluation, risk assessment, and performance improvement for in-service steel structures with corrosion damage. Therefore, this Special Issue focuses on advances in durability test techniques, corrosion detection technologies, structural static/dynamic performance evaluation methods, and the maintenance and reinforcement technologies of steel structures, and original research papers, communications, and reviews are all welcome.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

  • Durability test method and technology of steel structures more in line with real corrosive environments;
  • Non-destructive detect technology, characterization/evaluation method of corrosion damage for existing steel structures in a corrosive environment;
  • Degradation mechanism and law of monotonic tension, stability, hysteresis, and fatigue properties of corroded steel plates;
  • Failure mechanism, performance degradation law, and evaluation method of corroded steel members under static, seismic, and fatigue loads;
  • Strengthening technology and design method to improve the service performance of existing steel structures with corrosion damage.

Dr. Youde Wang
Dr. Baiqiao Chen
Dr. Liang Zong
Dr. Zongxing Zhang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • steel structure
  • corrosion
  • durability design
  • material degradation
  • structural performance evaluation
  • strengthening technology

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 6440 KiB  
Article
Investigation of Crack Repairing Technique to Delay Fracture Initiation of Steel Members Subjected to Low Cycle Fatigue
by Sampath Abeygunasekara, Jeeva Chandanee Pushpakumari Gamage and Sabrina Fawzia
Buildings 2023, 13(12), 2958; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13122958 - 28 Nov 2023
Viewed by 612
Abstract
Stress concentrations have become a common phenomenon in steel elements when arresting a fracture by implementing the crack stop hole (CSH) technique. Embedding the CSH with Carbon Fibre-Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) enhances the fatigue life by delaying fractures while achieving stiffness recovery due to [...] Read more.
Stress concentrations have become a common phenomenon in steel elements when arresting a fracture by implementing the crack stop hole (CSH) technique. Embedding the CSH with Carbon Fibre-Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) enhances the fatigue life by delaying fractures while achieving stiffness recovery due to the superior mechanical characteristics of the CFRP material. Hence, the low cyclic fatigue (LCF) behaviour of 90 strengthened and non-strengthened CSH specimens was examined in this context. These specimens were subjected to a range of 0 to 10,000 fatigue load cycles at a frequency of 5 Hz. At the end of fatigue exposure, the average tensile strength was measured in each case. The application of a CFRP patch on the CSH effectively recovered the strength losses while enhancing the strength in the range of 32% to 45% with respect to the non-strengthened specimens. The developed numerical model based on the cyclic J-integral technique agrees with the test results. This study introduced geometry-related design guidelines for this novel CSH hybrid technique. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Performance Evaluation and Improvement of Corroded Steel Structures)
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16 pages, 11837 KiB  
Article
Investigation of Corrosion Effects on Collapse of Truss Structures
by Zeynep Fırat Alemdar and Fatih Alemdar
Buildings 2023, 13(3), 826; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13030826 - 22 Mar 2023
Viewed by 1785
Abstract
Corrosion damage is a serious problem in steel structures. The cross-sectional loss in the structural members due to corrosion reduces the load-carrying capacity of the members and the stability of their structures. In this study, the main reasons for the collapse of three [...] Read more.
Corrosion damage is a serious problem in steel structures. The cross-sectional loss in the structural members due to corrosion reduces the load-carrying capacity of the members and the stability of their structures. In this study, the main reasons for the collapse of three steel sports infrastructure facilities after moderate snowfall were investigated by conducting field observations and detailed numerical analyses. Finite element models of the structures were developed by considering the effects of different rafter systems and corrosion damage at their columns’ support regions. The load-carrying capacity ratios and stress distributions of the structural members were determined under the effect of the snow load at the time of the collapse. The analysis results were consistent with the damage modes observed during site inspections. The snowfall was not the primary cause of the collapse; however, the section and joint losses due to excessive corrosion, improper erections, and discrepancies between the design project and the as-built project were the main reasons for the collapse. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Performance Evaluation and Improvement of Corroded Steel Structures)
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18 pages, 6325 KiB  
Article
Experimental Study and Numerical Simulation of the Tensile Properties of Corroded Bolt-Sphere Joints
by Qi Si, Yong Tang, Liang Zong, Heng Liu and Buqing Kang
Buildings 2022, 12(11), 1989; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12111989 - 16 Nov 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1235
Abstract
In order to study the mechanical behavior of corroded bolt-sphere joints and predict the bearing capacity of the joints in a corrosive environment, bolt-sphere-connection and bolt-sphere-joint specimens with differing degrees of corrosion were obtained by accelerated corrosion. The tensile properties of the corroded [...] Read more.
In order to study the mechanical behavior of corroded bolt-sphere joints and predict the bearing capacity of the joints in a corrosive environment, bolt-sphere-connection and bolt-sphere-joint specimens with differing degrees of corrosion were obtained by accelerated corrosion. The tensile properties of the corroded bolt-sphere connections and the bolt-sphere joints with members were tested, respectively, and the effects of different degrees of corrosion on the tensile properties of bolted spherical joints were studied. Finally, a numerical simulation of the corroded bolt-sphere connections and bolt-sphere joints with members was carried out, and the main factors affecting the tensile performance of the corroded bolt-sphere joints was clarified; the degradation law of the tensile properties of the bolted sphere joints with service time was established. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Performance Evaluation and Improvement of Corroded Steel Structures)
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14 pages, 5627 KiB  
Article
Three-Dimensional Morphology and Watershed-Algorithm-Based Method for Pitting Corrosion Evaluation
by Anbang Li, Hongwang Ma and Shanhua Xu
Buildings 2022, 12(11), 1908; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12111908 - 07 Nov 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1092
Abstract
Pitting corrosion and stress concentration at rust pits are the principal reasons for severe degradation in fatigue performance of corroded steel structures. The accurate evaluation of rust pits on rough and uneven corrosion surfaces is the foundation of fatigue life estimation for corroded [...] Read more.
Pitting corrosion and stress concentration at rust pits are the principal reasons for severe degradation in fatigue performance of corroded steel structures. The accurate evaluation of rust pits on rough and uneven corrosion surfaces is the foundation of fatigue life estimation for corroded steel structures. In this paper, a new method for the identification, extraction, and evaluation of rust pits on the surface of corroded steel structures was proposed based on a three-dimensional morphology and watershed algorithm. An accelerated corrosion experiment was first executed to acquire corroded steel plates, and then surface profile measurements were conducted to obtain the three-dimensional morphology of the corroded steel surfaces. Furthermore, the surface topography data of the corroded steel surfaces were written into a gray matrix through coordinate transformation. Then, the gray matrix was successively filtered and gradient-mapped, and the watershed was calculated to obtain the pit mark matrix and pit depth matrix. A calculation method for the size and shape of rust pits was consequently developed, and a statistical analysis of the extraction results of the rust pits was also conducted. The results showed that rust pit density had a peak value at the corrosion duration of 3 months, and rust pit density showed a fluctuating process with corrosion duration that continued to increase until 15 months. The values of the depth diameter ratios of rust pits were concentrated in the range of 0.1~0.8. With corrosion duration increasing from 3 months to 4, 6, 8, 12, and 15 months, the distribution range of the depth diameter ratios of rust pits decreased at first and then increased, followed by decrease and, finally, increase. The width distribution of the rust pits was independent of the depth distribution of the rust pits. The values of the volume ratios were mostly distributed between π/12 and π/4, and the shapes of most rust pits were similar to half (ellipsoidal) spheres. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Performance Evaluation and Improvement of Corroded Steel Structures)
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16 pages, 7007 KiB  
Article
A Modeling Method for Finite Element Analysis of Corroded Steel Structures with Random Pitting Damage
by Shenghui Zeng, Song Gu, Songbo Ren, Ying Gu, Chao Kong and Liqiong Yang
Buildings 2022, 12(11), 1793; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12111793 - 26 Oct 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2051
Abstract
Aiming at simulating the surface morphology of corroded steel and providing a modeling method with higher accuracy, the accelerated corrosion test was used to obtain six groups of corroded specimens, and then applied to stochastic finite element analysis (FEA) for studying the mechanical [...] Read more.
Aiming at simulating the surface morphology of corroded steel and providing a modeling method with higher accuracy, the accelerated corrosion test was used to obtain six groups of corroded specimens, and then applied to stochastic finite element analysis (FEA) for studying the mechanical behavior of corroded steel. The pitting parameters (the depth, width, and diameter–depth ratio) of all specimens were investigated and statistically analyzed. Considering the irregularity of corroded surface, the random pitting model (RPM) was established based on the secondary development of ABAQUS. Moreover, the rough surface meshing method (RSMM) was subsequently proposed to optimize the element quality of the FEA model. At last, the modeling method was applied to investigate the bearing capacity of corroded steel beams. The results indicate that, firstly, the pitting parameters of all specimens obeyed log-normal distribution, and their logarithmic mean values grew with increase in corrosion time. The corroded surface the RPM can reproduce the evolution behaviors of a corroded surface with higher accuracy. In addition, the FEA model of corroded steel structures can be meshed easily into hexahedron elements by using the RSMM and effectively optimizing the number and quality of elements. By comparing with other test results, the calculation results of the FEA model of steel beams established by using the modeling method proposed in this study demonstrate a good accuracy in mechanical behavior analysis. The modeling method provides further support for the study of mechanical properties of corroded steel structures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Performance Evaluation and Improvement of Corroded Steel Structures)
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16 pages, 3596 KiB  
Article
Degradation of Reinforced Concrete Beams Subjected to Sustained Loading and Multi-Environmental Factors
by Shengyuan Li, Henglin Lv, Tianhua Huang, Zhigang Zhang, Jin Yao and Xin Ni
Buildings 2022, 12(9), 1382; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12091382 - 05 Sep 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1842
Abstract
In the process of service, reinforced concrete structures have to bear both load and multi-environmental factors. The deterioration of reinforced concrete beams is critical to the durability, safety, and sustainability of reinforced concrete structures. The main aim of the present research is to [...] Read more.
In the process of service, reinforced concrete structures have to bear both load and multi-environmental factors. The deterioration of reinforced concrete beams is critical to the durability, safety, and sustainability of reinforced concrete structures. The main aim of the present research is to determine the degradation mechanism of reinforced concrete beams subjected to sustained loading and multi-environmental factors. Reinforced concrete beam specimens were prepared, loaded and then exerted multi-environmental factors. At the end of each degradation period, the degradation of concrete (chemical contents of concrete beam surfaces, carbonation depth, compressive strength and maximum cracks) and the corrosion of steel bars (corrosion ratio and tensile strength) were continuously measured. Moreover, degraded reinforced concrete beams were flexural loaded in four-point bending failure tests. The degradation mechanism of reinforced concrete beams subjected to sustained loading and multi-environmental factors was analyzed. Thus, this study can promote a comprehensive understanding of reinforced concrete beams subjected to sustained loading and multi-environmental factors. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Performance Evaluation and Improvement of Corroded Steel Structures)
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