Abstract
Chloride induced steel corrosion causes safety and stability problems to the reinforced concrete structure located closed to or under marine environment. The corrosive steel rust could potentially lead to surface swelling altering the external appearance, generating the concrete cracking, lowering the elasticity, reducing tensile strength, and thus leading to the deterioration of the concrete structure. Recent studies present an innovative method for inhibiting chloride corrosion by the addition of fibres into concrete to improve its toughness and tensile properties. By the addition of high fineness rice husk ash (RHA), the RHA would function as chloride adsorbent, preventing the chloride penetration through the concrete into the steel foundation. However, the addition of the RHA also affects the compressive strength, the workability, the consistency, and the slump of the concrete structure, limiting the mixed amount of the RHA that could be added in the concrete. A linear optimization model of the anti-corrosive RHA enhanced concrete has been formulated with the objective to minimize the effect of the chloride corrosion of the steel; whereas, the amount of the mixed RHA is limited by the critical concrete strength in term of modulus elasticity. In this study, the mass transfer coefficient, adsorption coefficient, and the Langmuir equilibrium isotherm are taken from the literatures. The chloride concentration is assumed to be 3.5 % w/v of the total chloride ion in salt water. The model has been validated with the measured data collected from open literatures. The optimum ratio between the RHA and cement mixture is discovered to be based on the void fraction of the concrete mixture. The optimum ratio is found to be around 10 % at the void fraction 0.8 and increasing to 25 % at the void fraction 1.2.
