Researchers from the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT) have developed together with the company Cementos La Cruz and the Construction Technology Centre a computer programme that determines the service life of concrete structures exposed to marine environments.
María del Pilar Hidalgo Torrano's thesis, supervised by Juan Francisco Sánchez and Iván Alhama and carried out within the Doctoral Programme in Technology and Modelling in Civil, Mining and Environmental Engineering, has achieved as a main result the development of the Concrelife® softwareregistered as intellectual property and which uses the determination of the chloride concentration to determine the corrosion of concrete structures.
This system helps enormously in planning a proper maintenance schedule.
The software can be applied to both new and existing structures., y allows to determine the time in which the necessary concentration is reached so that the onset of corrosion of the reinforced concrete structure.
By capturing all the mechanisms of chloride penetration in concrete: diffusion, entrainment, migration, capillary suction and formation of chloride salts (bound and precipitated chloride), and by being validated with experimental data, the programme provides very accurate results in its predictions.
The software calculates the service life of reinforced concrete based on its porosity, saturation and diffusivity characteristics.among other parameters, and assessing environmental conditions, including ambient temperature, relative humidity and ambient chlorine concentration. The project has been financed in part with European Feder funds through the CDTI. As it is developed through an agreement between the company and the UPCT, the thesis has the category of industrial doctorate.
