SERVICE LIFE STUDY OF FOUR REINFORCED CONCRETE STRUCTURES USING NON-DESTRUCTIVE ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES

Abstract

A study on the service life of four reinforced concrete structures, located in an urban zone of ​​the Portoviejo canton, Manabí province, Ecuador, was carried out. Non-destructive testing, without ruling out the use of destructive testing, was used. To estimate the service life in the four reinforced concrete structures was de main objective in the research study. To evaluate the concrete quality used in the building of the four structures. To demonstrate the most influential factors in the intensity of corrosion current as an indicator of atmospheric corrosion in the reinforcement steel embedded in the reinforced concrete were the specific objectives.  The results allowed us to estimate that the four structures are within their service life project, perhaps not reaching their service life final and residual, confirmed by visual observation. It is possible then that, the carbonation phenomenon occurrence alone did not compromise the service life project of the structures without the presence of high chloride concentration mainly soluble chloride ions. Everything seemed to indicate that the Ic values ​​were not reliable. The four structures are located in an urban zone at great distances from the coastline or the surf zone. Furthermore, it was shown that the carbonation front did not reach the reinforcement steel/hardened concrete paste interface zone.