Congratulations to Prof. Yu-Chen Ou and Ph.D. student Nguyen Dang Nguyen of Department of Construction Engineering to receive the 2012 SEEBUS Best Paper Award

Paper Title: Plastic hinge length of corroded reinforced concrete beams
Authors: Yu Chen Ou, and Nguyen Dang Nguyen
Conference Website: http://www.ce.nkfust.edu.tw/seebus/

Figure 1 shows a photo of Prof. Ou to receive the award.

Figure 1. Prof. Ou received the Award from Prof. Kuramoto of Osaka University

Abstract of Research
      Most of the reinforced concrete structures in Taiwan, located in seismic region, are close to the coastline, which makes them prone to corrosion of steel reinforcement after certain years of their service life. Figure 1 shows an example of steel reinforcement corrosion of a building in Taiwan. Corrosion of steel reinforcement is determined as the most significant deterioration problem faced by RC structures, increasing the structural vulnerability to extreme load and natural hazards. This research developed a nonlinear finite element method to analyze the mechanical behavior of corroded reinforced concrete beams. Since existing plastic hinge length formulations for RC members do not consider corrosion of steel reinforcement, a parametric study was then carried out to examine the plastic hinge length of reinforced concrete beams. Simplified expressions are proposed to modify plastic hinge length equations to incorporate corrosion effects. Figure 2 illustrates representative finite element analysis results of corroded beams in the parametric study.  Results of this research help civil engineers to properly evaluate the seismic performance of existing corroded reinforced concrete structures and lay the foundation for new building design to incorporate corrosion effect.

Figure 2. A severely corroded reinforced concrete building in Taiwan.

Figure 3. Strain contour of two beams at their end in simulations: (a) L3C0D32F40 (no corrosion); and (b) L3C20D32F40 (corrosion level of 20%).