Test assessment of RC structures in marine environment: the Geiger Key Bridge

Reinforced concrete marine structures are highly vulnerable to corrosion due to chloride ion attack; the severity of the attack being dependent on, among other factors, the prevailing climatic condition. The aggressiveness of the warm marine environment of Florida has led to the premature deterioration of numerous bridges and building along the coastline. This paper describes a methodology for structural assessment of concrete bridges while incorporating analysis uncertainty. The procedure includes the use of visual, electrochemical and non-destructive methods in order to define the cause and the level of concrete deterioration. A probabilistic mechanistic model is used to generate the distribution of the time to corrosion initiation based on statistical models of the governing parameters obtained from field data. The proposed methodology is applied to predict the time to corrosion initiation and predict the residual service life of the reinforcing steel in the concrete girders of the Geiger Bridge in Key West, FL.