Predicting the Chloride Penetration of Sustainable Marine Concrete Using Data-driven and Multiphysics Frameworks

Chloride penetration in sustainable reinforced concrete (RC) is a critical parameter for predicting and preventing infrastructure failure, particularly for marine applications. However, replicating natural environments and testing in actual infrastructure is challenging, making it difficult to accurately measure chloride concentration in RC. Additionally, the complexity of concrete mixture designs and environmental parameters hinders the development of a universal model to predict chloride concentration at various concrete depths. This study develops a data-driven approach to predict chloride concentrations at different depths and chloride diffusion coefficients in marine RC made with common supplementary cementitious materials (e.g. fly ash, slag, etc.) under varied environmental conditions and exposure times (including both short- and long-term). Furthermore, the study leverages porosity obtained from thermodynamic simulations as a bridge to establish correlations between compressive strength and chloride diffusion coefficients. This approach enables a practical estimation of chloride diffusion coefficients in marine concrete based on simple compressive strength measurements.