Durability of concrete structures in marine atmosphere zones – The use of chloride deposition rate on the wet candle as an environmental indicator

Abstract

Durability of concrete structures under marine environments has been studied for a long time. This work was focused on marine atmosphere zone and studied the deposition of chlorides on wet candle devices and its relation with chlorides accumulated into concrete. Concrete specimens with three different mixtures were exposed at places located at four different distances from the sea. Periodically, chloride profiles were obtained and analysed taking into account environmental data. Results of numerical extrapolations show that chloride deposition rate on the wet candle can be used as an environmental indicator, helping to preview the expectancy of service life of concrete structures or suggesting minimum concrete cover thicknesses for a required service life. Regarding the studied region, service life decreases between 30% and 60% were observed when changing chloride deposition from 120 mg/m2 day to 500 mg/m2 day, which shows that chloride deposition plays an important role as an environmental indicator on service-life analysis of concrete structures in marine atmosphere zone.