Investigation of computational model for surface chloride concentration of concrete in marine atmosphere zone

Current computational models for the surface chloride concentration of concrete exposed to marine atmosphere zone cannot comprehensively take into account the influence of marine environmental conditions and material parameters of concrete. To overcome this limitation, the transportation process of chloride ions from the marine atmosphere into bulk concrete were explored. Then an improved computational model for the surface chloride concentration of concrete exposed to the marine atmosphere zone was developed on the basis of a large amount of field data. Both environmental conditions and material parameters were considered in the proposed model, including the distance from the sea, wind speed, water-to-binder ratio, binder type and exposure time. The accuracy and applicability of the proposed model were validated by comparing with current computational models and field investigation data. Results show that the proposed model is consistent with the process of transportation and accumulation of chloride ions from sea air into bulk concrete, which overcomes the aforementioned limitation in current models.