Effect of Ground Water Sodium Chloride Attack on Reinforced Concrete Footings

Abstract

In footings construction, it is very important to protect the reinforced concrete in direct contact with the soil from the ground water attack, especially if it is consisting of risky salt such as NaCl. One of the main objectives of this paper is to study the effect of ground water NaCl attack on the compressive strength and on steel reinforcement of footings, which is usually subjected to ground water. The experimental work consists of two main stages; first is preparing plain concrete and reinforced concrete for ordinary and high strength concrete and the second stage is finding the compressive strength and reduction in the weight of reinforcement (Corrosion) after curing the specimens in salty water of NaCl concentration 4000 mg/l. The important conclusions are the compressive strength of concrete decreases when the concrete is submerged with salty water (NaCl) with percentage decrease 51% for ordinary concrete (OC) and 38% for high strength concrete (HSC). Regarding the effect of concrete cover on reinforcement, the results show that the corrosion in steel reinforcement decreases when the concrete cover increases. Finally, use of high strength concrete and a suitable concrete cover are very useful in protecting the reinforced footings and in improving durability.