Mechanical properties of corroded stainless steel rebars under marine environment

Under the marine environment, the durability of the reinforced concrete (RC) infrastructures is greatly influenced by the chloride-induced corrosion of the ordinary reinforcing bars. In order to prolong the service life of the RC infrastructures, stainless steel rebars (SSRs) are gradually used in marine infrastructures due to their better corrosion resistance. However, research on the corrosion and mechanical properties of the SSR under marine environmental attack is quite limited. In this paper, tensile tests at room temperature were carried out on corroded SSR samples with different types and diameters. Results show that, no obvious yielding plateaus can be observed in the stress-strain relation curves of the SSRs when compared with those of the ordinary carbon steel bars; the yielding strength and ultimate strength of the corroded ordinary carbon steel bars and SSRs decrease with the increased average cross-sectional loss while the elongation change of the corroded SSRs with the average cross-sectional loss is variable. Basing on the constitutive model of uncorroded SSR proposed by Ramberg and Osgood and considering the influence of the average and maximum cross-sectional loss on the strengths of corroded SSRs, stress-strain constitutive models of the corroded SSRs were proposed.