Distributed strain sensing to determine the impact of corrosion on bond performance in reinforced concrete

•Distributed fibre optic strain measurements were made on tension tests.•A method of protecting the steel-fibre optic bond from corrosion was developed.•Strain profiles illustrated the breakdown in steel-concrete bond with corrosion.•Pitting corrosion resulted in strain peaks but were difficult to identify.

Corrosion of reinforcing steel is the primary deterioration mechanism for reinforced concrete structures, however its impact on structural behaviour can be difficult to assess using visual inspections. This paper investigates the potential for using distributed fibre optic sensors to monitor the impact of corrosion to supplement visual inspections. Tension tests were conducted on bare reinforcement and reinforced concrete specimens subjected to accelerated corrosion. The distributed fibre optic strain data provided insights into the concrete-reinforcement bond performance of corroded specimens and the detection of pitting corrosion appeared to be possible although challenging.