Phuc Phan Van, Long Tran NgocThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Khanh Nguyen Duy, Hung Nguyen Manh, Tuan Nguyen Trong, and Thai Tran Anh
Department of Civil Engineering, Vinh University, Vinh 461010, Vietnam
Received: September 29, 2025 Accepted: January 18, 2026 Publication Date: February 14, 2026
Copyright The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are cited.
The corrosion of steel reinforcement poses a significant threat to the safety and longevity of reinforced concrete (RC) structures by inducing a potential shift from ductile to brittle failure. This study presents a comprehensive 3Dnonlinear finite element model (FEM) to systematically quantify this transition in single-story, single-bay RC frames. The model, validated against experimental data with high accuracy (<7.5% deviation), incorporates key degradation mechanisms, including rebar section loss, material property deterioration, and critically, bond-slip interface degradation. Acknowledging the idealization of uniform corrosion and monotonic loading to establish a fundamental capacity envelope, an extensive parametric study (230 simulations) was conducted. Results identified the axial compression ratio as the most detrimental parameter, causing up to a 56.7% reduction in lateral capacity, while column reinforcement was the most effective strengthening parameter, enhancing capacity by 39%. A key finding is the heightened vulnerability of higher-strength concrete to corrosion-induced capacity loss, attributed to its brittle nature exacerbating bond degradation. The primary contribution of this research is the development of a "Failure Mode Map," a novel graphical tool that quantitatively delineates the transition from a safe "Ductile-Flexural" failure zone to a dangerous "Brittle-Bond" zone as a function of corrosion level and axial load. This map provides a practical framework for structural assessment, highlighting critical thresholds beyond which conventional capacity models are non-conservative and unsafe.
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