•Guiding principles to address deterioration due to corrosion are provided.•Available tests of determining the level of deterioration are culled from the literature.•A categorization of solution ...methods for protection, maintenance, and repair if offered.•A readily-available reference for practitioners and researchers on corrosion for coastal concrete structures.
Deterioration due to corrosion is a key issue affecting the durability, safety, and sustainability of buildings and structures. Most cities are located in coastal areas and many reinforced concrete structures in these areas are exposed to aggressive marine environments. Therefore, it is important to provide protection and offer appropriate repair methods of buildings vulnerable to the degrading effects of corrosion. The first step of implementing recovery is determining the level of degradation undergone by exposed concrete structures. However, there is a lack of integrated guiding principles in this field. Thus, this review paper identifies the tests of determining the level of deterioration, with particular attention given to carbonation issues and chloride ion attacks. The paper also provides a categorization of solution methods for protection, maintenance, and repair, based on standards and codes culled from around the world. This research contributes to the field by providing a readily-available reference for practitioners and researchers, on the current state of knowledge on corrosion and repair strategies for coastal concrete structures.
Modular constructions are off-site prefabricated structures with transportable units assembled on-site. These units are linked together using mechanical connectors called “inter-modular connections”. ...Modular building structures are attractive from a constructional efficiency point of view if they include specific characteristics such as ease of on-site assembly and speed of construction. Accordingly, a vertically unconstrained inter-modular connection can considerably decrease the construction effort and promote the feasibility of the modular system if tension forces do not develop in columns when the structure is submitted to lateral loads. This study presents an efficient vertically unconstrained inter-modular connection, including a bolted tie plate and male–female components to ensure the connectivity of the diaphragms and columns. Two series of experimental tests are performed to examine the proposed inter-modular connection’s shear and axial force responses. The calibrated finite element models developed in ABAQUS software are used to study the in-plane shear behavior of a perforated plate acting as horizontal component of the inter-modular connection. The results show that the proposed connection has adequate ductile ultimate strength controlled by the yielding of the net section of the tie plate. However, removing the up-lift constraining mechanisms may lead to serviceability issues due to a potential slip occurrence between modular components constructed with tolerances. The experimental and numerical results/frameworks presented herein provide detailed behavioral information, including slip, yielding, and failure modes of the connection’s components. The captured behavior can be used to develop a simplified model of the proposed connection that can be used in detailed structural analyses.
•Novel uplift unconstrained inter-modular connection is proposed.•Uplift-unconstrained inter-modular connection can increase the construction speed.•The components of the connection are investigated experimentally and numerically.•Multi degree of freedom behavioral laws are proposed to model the connection.•Equations are proposed to calculate the in-plane shear capacity of the tie plate.
