Probabilistic Lifetime Assessment of RC Pipe Piles Subjected to Chloride Environments

Abstract

This paper presents a probabilistic approach for evaluating the lifetime of reinforced concrete (RC) pipe piles subjected to chloride environments. A predictive model is developed for modeling the deterioration process of RC pipe piles in order to estimate the probabilistic lifetime of RC pipe piles subjected to chloride environments. The time-dependent probabilistic lifetime analysis of RC pipe piles is carried out in the framework of Monte Carlo simulation. An illustrative example of the proposed approach is demonstrated to estimate the probabilistic lifetime of RC pipe piles, and subsequently the sensitivity analysis of governing parameters is conducted to study the effect of the random variables on the probabilistic lifetime of RC pipe piles. The analysis results show that the lifetime depends highly on the governing parameters for corrosion initiation. The failure probability over the lifetime is more sensitive to variations of the governing parameters for corrosion initiation than to variations of the governing parameters for crack initiation.