Investigation of reinforcement corrosion effects in RC columns produced with blast furnace slag and fly ash under reversed-cyclic lateral loading tests

Corrosion, which threatens reinforced concrete structures throughout their service life, adversely affects the earthquake performance of the structures. For countries located in an active earthquake zone, it is of great importance to investigate the behavior of reinforced concrete structures exposed to corrosion damage under lateral load. For this purpose, the effect of the use of blast furnace slag (BFS) and fly ash (FA) in certain proportions by weight of CEM I 42.5R cement on the reinforcement corrosion inside the RC column and the positive/ negative contribution to the behavior of the columns under lateral load were experimentally investigated. Within the scope of this study, firstly three RC column specimens without any mineral admixture were produced as CONTROL series. In the mineral admixture series, a total of 12 RC column specimens, 3 from each series, were produced by using 20% and 40% BFS, 10% and 20% FA of the cement amount instead of cement, respectively. One of the three columns produced for each series was selected as a reference, and the remaining two-column specimens were exposed to corrosion under constant voltage until theoretically 10% and 30% weight losses were achieved, respectively, using the Faraday Equation in the reinforcements. After the accelerated corrosion tests, the RC columns were tested under reversed-cyclic lateral loading reflecting the earthquake effect. Experimental results show that the use of mineral admixtures in concrete production reduces the risk of corrosion of reinforced concrete elements and improves earthquake behavior.