Model for practical prediction of natural carbonation in reinforced concrete: Part 1-formulation

A model is proposed for prediction of natural carbonation in reinforced concrete (RC) structures, and is potentially applicable to existing and new RC structures. The major components of the model comprise mathematical functions applied to predict the influence of concrete composition, and environmental factors on natural carbonation. This paper introduces the model concept and explains its structure including derivation, optimization and calibration. Over 163 data sets taken from a 10-year carbonation study were used in the model development and calibration. Only the experimental data that were based on outdoor natural exposure environment were employed in this research. Also in this study, the proposed model is compared with fib-Model Code 2010 using carbonation predictions generated from 346 data sets involving real world, highway structures. It is shown that the proposed model is comparably accurate and involves mainly basic tests with no major anticipated costs. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd.