Evolution of ACI 562
Code—Part 11
Durability of concrete repair
by Fred R. Goodwin
D
urability is a critical component of repaired concrete
and is described in Chapter 8 of ACI 562-16.1
Throughout the document, the term “considered” is
used. This is a key point for a performance-based code as
opposed to a prescriptive code. “Considered” in this context
means to examine options specific to the situation and make a
decision based on sound engineering judgment. A prescriptive
code provides a recipe for achieving a desired result, while a
performance code allows more discretion to achieve a more
economical, innovative, and successful result.
Durability is defined in Chapter 2 of the Code as the
“ability of a material or structure to resist weathering action,
chemical attack, abrasion, and other conditions of service and
maintain serviceability over a specified time or service life.”
Durability is not only for the repaired area but also the
overall durability of the repaired structure and the interaction
of the repair system with the structure. Chapter 8 of ACI
562-16 is divided into sections discussing durability in
general, reinforcement cover, cracks, deterioration from
Existing Concrete Structures—Learning
Lessons and Advancing Solutions
ACI Committee 562, Evaluation, Repair, and
Rehabilitation of Concrete Buildings, strives to advance
the practice of engineering and improve the repair and
rehabilitation of existing concrete structures. ACI
Subcommittee 562-E, Education, is dedicated to helping
engineers, building officials, contractors, owners,
inspectors, and others by conveying information in more
detail than is possible solely through the ACI 562 Code
and Commentary. To this end, and in the hope of
improving these documents, members of ACI 562 are
providing a series of articles under the main theme,
“Existing Concrete Structures—Learning Lessons and
Advancing Solutions.”
Please contact the editors with suggestions for future
articles.
corrosion of reinforcement and metallic embedment, and
surface treatments.
General Durability
For durability to occur, a degree of compatibility between
the repair materials, the existing structure, and the
environment surrounding the structure must exist.
Compatibility is defined in Chapter 2 of the Code as “the
ability of two or more materials to be placed in contact or in
sufficiently close proximity to interact with no significant
detrimental results.”
Durability is situational. Repairs to concrete structures can
be temporary, sacrificial, or intended to last as long as the
structure being repaired. Of course, the owner plays a major
role in the decision. For example, if a parking structure were
owned by a university, it’s likely that it would have a much
longer design service life than if it were owned by a private
investor in a commercial garage. The university can commit
to a budget to allocate funds for maintenance and periodic
repairs as well as maintain the prestige of their institution. In
contrast, the loss of revenue during repair and maintenance of
a commercial parking structure will negatively impact the
cash flow available for repair. The potential resale of the
property for further development or ownership change also
impacts the methodology of repairs. The time that a structure
can be out of service will be reduced, and so repairs will be
more temporary, providing for a shorter design service life.
The design service life of a structure and the repaired
members therefore should be established by the licensed
design professional in consultation with the owner to achieve
an economical repair that satisfies strength, safety, and
serviceability requirements.
Causes of Reduced Repair Durability
The durability of repairs is also often less than the design
service life. A study published by the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers2 states: “A little more than 50% of the repairs
performed on the Corps structures are performing
satisfactorily, which is an unacceptable rate. Failures of
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repairs are attributable to design or evaluation errors, material
performance, and installation or construction errors. The
Corps experience is not unusual.” A later study from the
Building Research Establishment3 implies similar conclusions
as well, showing the rapid degradation of repairs. Durability
reduction is usually a combination of factors compounded
from design and construction errors, deterioration, and damage.
Design and construction errors are usually divided into
patent and latent defects. Either type may cause a structure to
experience more rapid deterioration. Patent defects are flaws
that are noticed by reasonable observation, usually before the
structure is returned to service. A latent defect is a “hidden or
dormant defect in a product, premises, or title to real property
that cannot be discovered by observation or a reasonably
careful inspection.”4 Examples of latent defects in concrete
construction include under-strength concrete resulting from
added mixing water or inadequate curing, or misplaced
reinforcement. These might not be discovered using ordinary
and reasonable care in inspection.
Deterioration is defined in ACI Concrete Terminology5 as
“the decomposition of material during either testing or
exposure to service.” Therefore, deterioration is a progressive
failure over some elapsed time. Defects and deterioration
make the structure more susceptible to damage.
Damage is described in the Code as “changes in the
capacity of an existing structure resulting from events, such as
loads and displacements.” Damage thus occurs over a relatively
short time period. Defects arising during construction or
repair can lead to accelerated deterioration and progressively
limit the service life of a structure. Further, the existing
deterioration can significantly magnify the extent of damage
from an event. A general term for the chain of events
combining defects, deterioration, and damage is degradation.
Degradation can be classified into four types: mechanical,
chemical, physical, and reinforcement corrosion. Mechanical
degradation can originate from abrasion, fatigue, impact,
overload, settlement, explosion, vibration, excessive
displacement, loads, or ground motion from a seismic event.
Chemical degradation is depicted by factors such as alkali-
aggregate reaction (AAR), sulfate attack, acid dissolution, soft
water leaching, and biological action. Physical degradation
can be from freezing and thawing, scaling, differing
coefficients of thermal expansion between materials, salt
crystallization, radiation exposure, fire, and differential
permeability between materials. Reinforcement corrosion is
the result of carbonation, corrosive contaminants, dissimilar
metals, stray currents, and stress corrosion cracking.
Durability in repairs requires that materials be specified
based upon the service environment. New materials need to be
compatible with existing materials, potential maintenance
issues need to be identified, and the owner must be made
aware of maintenance requirements. Maintenance of concrete
is often ignored due to the long service life, slow progression
of failure, and strength of concrete. However, if performed
proactively, before deterioration has occurred, maintenance
38 MAY 2017 | Ci | www.concreteinternational.com
can provide significant cost savings compared to deferring for
more aggressive remediation in the future.
Eventually, the end of the structure’s service life is reached.
The Code states that this occurs when either the structural
safety is unacceptable due to material degradation (that is, the
actual strength is less than the required strength), maintenance
requirements exceed resource limits, aesthetics become
unacceptable, structural functionality is no longer sufficient,
or deformation capacity of the structure has been degraded
due to a seismic event.
Cover
Effective cover provides protection and development of the
reinforcing steel. ACI Concrete Terminology defines cover as
“the least distance between the surface of embedded
reinforcement and the surface of the concrete.” The repair
Code also introduces another type of cover, called “equivalent
cover,” which is obtained using “a system to supplement
insufficient concrete cover to improve durability or fire
protection to that equivalent to the minimum cover specified
in the design basis code.” For repairs, as described in the
repair code, cover can be achieved in accordance with the
design basis code but also by using alternative materials and
methods to produce an equivalent cover that provides
sufficient corrosion protection and fire protection that has
been shown to be adequate by successful use, analysis, or
testing based on data presented for approval to the building
official or to a board of examiners appointed by the building
official. The Code also requires that sufficient anchorage and
development for the reinforcement is to be provided
regardless of the methods used for corrosion protection.
Corrosion
Steel is added as reinforcement to concrete to increase
tensile capacity, yet steel is thermodynamically unstable and
will eventually rust. There are four elements to a corrosion
cell: the anode, cathode, electrical path, and ionic path. In
conventional concrete reinforcement, the anodes and cathodes
can exist adjacent to each other or be widely separated
depending on the ionic conductivity, usually measured by the
resistivity. The steel and tie wires provide the electrical path.
Fortunately, the alkalinity of concrete produces a stable
passivating film on the steel surface, provided that chloride
levels are below the corrosion threshold, there is insufficient
oxygen available to sustain the corrosion reaction, and/or that
electrical potential remains in the passive region. Unfortunately,
the high pH levels will tend to decrease with time, usually
due to carbonation, leading to the dissipation of the passive
film and producing general corrosion. Chlorides and other
ions can also penetrate the passivating film, causing localized
pitting corrosion.
ACI 562 requires that where concrete cover for existing
reinforcement is insufficient to provide corrosion protection
for the design service life of the structure, additional concrete
cover or an alternate means of corrosion protection has to be
implemented to mitigate corrosion of reinforcement within the
repair area. The existing reinforcement corrosion, chloride
contamination, and carbonation as well as the application of
dampproof membranes, corrosion inhibitors, and forms of
cathodic protection are to be considered to address corrosion
protection. The moisture transmission through the structure
and the influence of surface treatments that may have a shorter
service life than the concrete need to be addressed in selection
of a repair strategy for the desired durability of the structure.
The encapsulation of moisture and deleterious materials by
application of surface treatments may also cause or accelerate
deterioration of the concrete.
In the design of durable repairs, the removal of corrosion
products, the quality of the existing concrete and its ability to
protect reinforcement from corrosion and deterioration, and
the protection of existing and new reinforcement necessary to
satisfy durability requirements is considered. Consideration of
galvanic corrosion between electrochemically dissimilar
materials; the corrosion protection of prestressing materials
and components; and the interaction of the repaired elements,
the entire structure, and environment (especially for
electrochemical treatments) are needed for repair materials and
reinforcement to be selected and detailed to be compatible.
Cracking
Cracking is the most common symptom of concrete
deterioration. Once cracking has occurred, further
deterioration is more rapid, as cracks allow the ingress of
deleterious materials such as deicing salts to the reinforcing
steel, and they are planes of weakness in the concrete member
during conditions of additional stress.
The tensile strength of concrete is low compared to its
compressive strength, and the cause of cracking is typically
“the tensile strength has been exceeded” by tensile stresses
arising from internal or external effects. Sources of tensile
stresses include internal expansion (from, for example, AAR,
corrosion of reinforcement, or freezing of water when the
concrete is critically saturated); restraint of contraction
(resulting from, for example, plastic, drying, or autogenous
shrinkage; decreases in temperature; or post-tensioning);
external tensile or flexural loads; or unrestrained lateral
expansion under compressive loading.
According to ACI 562, the design of repairs must include
consideration of the effects of cracks on the expected
durability, performance, and design service life of the repair.
The designer must also investigate the causes, movement,
size, orientation, and width of cracks; the complexity of the
network of cracks; characteristics of the substrate; and
location and evidence of water transmission. While the cause
and repair of cracking must be assessed and considered in
repair design, not all cracks need structural repair. Epoxy
injection should not be used, for example, to repair cracks
caused by corrosion of steel reinforcement or AAR unless
supplemental means are employed to mitigate the causes. All
cracks have the potential to become active cracks, so flexible,
nonstructural repair materials may provide needed protection
against ingress of corrosive agents.
Summary
The goals of ACI Committee 562 include reducing the
common causes of repair material failures and achieving
repair durability appropriate to the design service lives of
structures. Successful application of a performance approach
will reduce future problems for licensed design professionals
by providing a more economical, innovative, and less
restrictive basis for repair design than alternative prescriptive
approaches.
References
1. ACI Committee 562, “Code Requirements for Assessment, Repair,
and Rehabilitation of Existing Concrete Structures (ACI 562-16) and
Commentary,” American Concrete Institute, Farmington Hills, MI, 2016,
86 pp.
2. McDonald, J.E., and Campbell, R.L., “The Condition of Corps of
Engineers Civil Works Concrete Structures,” Technical Report REMR-
CS-2, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Washington, DC, 1985, 141 pp.
3. “Special Issue: CON REP NET TN Interaction Meeting, BBRI,
Brussels, Belgium, February 9-10, 2004,” CON REP NET Network
Newsletter, No. 3, May 2004, 10 pp., http://projects.bre.co.uk/conrepnet/
pdf/newsletter3.pdf.
4. “Latent Defect Law and Legal Definitions,” USLegal, Inc., https://
definitions.uslegal.com/l/latent-defect/. (last accessed 2016)
5. “ACI Concrete Terminology (CT-16),” American Concrete
Institute, Farmington Hills, MI, 2016, 74 pp.
Selected for reader interest by the editors.
Fred R. Goodwin, FACI, is the Head of the
BASF Construction Chemicals Global
Corrosion Competency Center, with more
than 30 years of experience in the
construction chemicals industry, including
cement manufacture, research,
development, technical support of grouts,
adhesives, coatings, shotcrete, flooring,
and concrete repair materials. He
received the 2011 ACI Delmar L. Bloem
Distinguished Service Award, the 2015 Strategic Development
Council Jean-Claude Roumain Innovation in Concrete Award, and
the 2016 ASTM C09 Award of Merit. Goodwin is Chair of the ACI
TAC Repair and Rehabilitation Committee and a member of the ACI
Technical Activities Committee (TAC). He is also a member of ACI
Committees 222, Corrosion of Metals in Concrete; 351,
Foundations for Equipment and Machinery; 364, Rehabilitation; 515,
Protective Systems for Concrete; 546, Repair of Concrete; 562,
Evaluation, Repair, and Rehabilitation of Concrete Buildings; and
563, Specifications for Repair of Structural Concrete in Buildings.
He is also a Fellow of ASTM International and International
Concrete Repair Institute (ICRI). Goodwin is Chair of the ICRI TAC,
as well as an Honorary Member of ASTM Committees C01,
Cement, and C09, Concrete and Concrete Aggregates.
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