Work

RAAC panels can suddenly collapse before any warning of corrosion-induced surface cracking

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: The collapse of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) panels has attracted considerable public and academic interest. As detailed experimental data are not yet available and replicating the natural corrosion process requires years or decades, computational modelling is essential to understand under which conditions corrosion remains concealed. The very high porosity of RAAC is widely suspected to be a major contributing factor. However, current corrosion-induced cracking models are known to struggle with capturing the role of concrete porosity. To remedy this critical deficiency, we propose to enrich corrosion-induced cracking modelling with the analytical solution of reactive transport equations governing the precipitation of rust and a porosity-dependent description of diffusivity. With this, the corrosion concealment in RAAC panels is studied computationally for the first time, revealing that RAAC panels can suddenly collapse before any warning of corrosion-induced surface cracking and allowing to map the conditions most likely to result in sudden collapse.

Source: npj Materials Degradation

DOI: 10.1038/s41529-025-00596-5

Authors: Evžen Korec, Peter Grassl, Milan Jirásek, Hong S. Wong, Emilio Martínez-Pañeda

Institutions: University of Oxford, Imperial College London, University of Glasgow, Czech Technical University in Prague

Language: English

Topic: Concrete Corrosion and Durability

Subfield: Civil and Structural Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,590

Funders: UK Research and Innovation, Imperial College London, European Commission