Title: A gamma distributed degradation rate model for reliability analysis of concrete pipes subject to sulphide corrosion

Authors: Mojtaba Mahmoodian; M.A. Alani

Addresses: Faculty of Engineering and Science, University of Greenwich, London SE10 9LS, UK ' Faculty of Engineering and Science, University of Greenwich, London SE10 9LS, UK

Abstract: Ageing and deterioration of structures and infrastructure is one of the main concerns of structural engineers and asset managers for reliability analysis and service life prediction purposes. In order to model monotonic progression of the deterioration process in concrete sewers (i.e., concrete corrosion), the paper proposes a gamma distributed rate model to account for temporal variability associated with the corrosion process in buried concrete sewer pipes that typically increases the probability of failure with the ageing of the pipe. The proposed methodology is used for reliability analysis of concrete sewers in Harrogate in the UK. The results are then verified by a common reliability analysis method (i.e., Monte Carlo simulation). A good agreement between the results from the two methods was concluded. The effectiveness of different basic random variables on the level of reliability is also estimated by a focused sensitivity analysis.

Keywords: time-dependent reliability analysis; concrete pipes; sulphide corrosion; gamma distributed degradation model; sensitivity analysis; modelling; pipe corrosion; concrete sewers; concrete corrosion; sewer pipes; Monte Carlo simulation; UK; United Kingdom.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRS.2014.062636

International Journal of Reliability and Safety, 2014 Vol.8 No.1, pp.19 - 32

Accepted: 18 Feb 2014
Published online: 25 Oct 2014 *

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