Mechanism of corrosion-related reactions in cementitious systems

Please check whether enrolling in this project is possible by directly contacting the responsible supervisor(s) indicated below as soon as possible. Note that although we announce many topics, we won't be able to offer all of them simultaneously due to limited lab capacity.

Predicting the longevity of concrete structures exposed to corrosive conditions remains to be a contemporary challenge of engineering science. Computational models that simulate the phenomenon of corrosion rely on thermodynamic and kinetic data to accurately predict the speed at which reinforcement structures are degrading. Whilst thermodynamic data for all components involved is well tabulated across a range of literature sources, the underlying reaction mechanisms and kinetic rate constants are still unavailable at present time. To capture changes in the chemical composition throughout the concrete domain, it is paramount to fill in these gaps in literature data currently available and therefore make a real contribution to the current standard of knowledge about the phenomenon.

Students enrolling for this project will be combining hands on experimental work and numerical modelling approaches to successively develop their very own reactive transport model over the course of the project. One key objective is to make use of recently developed kinetic rate laws and incorporate them into an existing model framework in Python to predict the formation of corrosion products in cementitious systems. Project supervisors are available for an informal discussion about the project.