Bond behaviour of corroded reinforcing steel bars in concrete

The effect of steel corrosion on bond between steel bars and the surrounding concrete was investigated for different corrosion levels. Both pullout tests and finite element analysis were used and the results from the two were compared. An electrolyte corrosion technique was used to accelerate steel corrosion. For confined deformed bars, a medium level (around 4%) of corrosion had no substantial influence on the bond strength, but substantial reduction in bond took place when corrosion increased thereafter to a higher level of around 6%. It is demonstrated that the confinement supplied an effective way to counteract bond loss for corroded steel bars of a medium (around 4% to 6%) corrosion level. The results of finite element analyses, where it was assumed that rust behaved like a granular material, showed a reasonably good agreement with the experiments regarding bond strength and bond stiffness.