A Novel SMFL-Based Assessment Method for Corrosion Nonuniformity of Rebar and Its Application in Reliability Analysis of Corroded RC Beam

The reliability of corroded reinforced concrete (RC) structures relies on the accurate minimum cross-sectional area of corroded rebar. In this study, the accurate morphologies and self-magnetic flux leakage (SMFL) field strengths of twenty-eight non-uniformly corroded rebars were obtained using 3D structural light scanning and micromagnetic detection technologies, based on which three indices of the SMFL field variation ratio dH, the corrosion non-uniformity degree dS_n, and the cross-sectional area ratio K_0.25 are proposed. The statistical results show that the probability densities of dS_n and K_0.25 obey the Weibull distribution and Gamma distribution at the 95% confidence level, respectively, and their distribution parameters are linearly or inversely proportional to dH. The probability density distribution of the minimum cross-sectional area of corroded rebar can be determined using indices dS_n and K_0.25, based on which a feasible SMFL-based reliability assessment method of corroded RC structures is proposed. The case study of a real specific corroded RC beam shows that the reliability assessment error of the SMFL-based method is only 1.2%, which is much lower than the 20.7% error of the existing method. This SMFL-based method provides a novel idea that can automatically and accurately assess the effect of rebars’ corrosion non-uniformity on the reliability of specific in-serviceRC structures.