Ultimate compressive strength assessment of uncleaned and cleaned corroded plates with locked crack

The work presented here investigates the structural response of cleaned corroded plates, subjected to compressive load in the presence of a locked crack, where the change of mechanical properties as a result of corrosion development and the cleaning process is also accounted for. A Finite Element model for assessing the compressive strength, considering geometric and material nonlinearities, is developed, and the analysed plates are compared with the available experimental data. An experimental design plan is generated using the Design of Experiments techniques, which quantifies the influence of the governing variables and their interactions with respect to the plate’s ultimate compressive strength. With a limited number of observations, the most significant effects are identified. The corrosion degradation is revealed to be the most crucial effect leading to an effective strength reduction. It was found that, in the case of a corroded plate with a locked crack subjected to a compressive load, the most severe case is when the crack is transversely oriented. The strength reduction is slightly lower than when the corrosion degradation and the presence of a crack are considered to be a simple summation of these two effects but acting separately. The outcome of the analysis is the development of several empirical formulations that allow a fast estimation of the ultimate strength of a corroded plate, subjected to compressive load in the presence of a locked crack, accounting for different cleaning.