Cellular Automata-Based Experimental Study on the Evolution of Corrosion Damage in Bridge Cable Steel Wire

Cable-stayed bridges have become the preferred bridge type for large-span bridges due to their unique advantages, and the long-term performance of the cable under the extreme conditions has been facing great challenges. An accelerated corrosion test was carried out using in-service cable, and the evolution model of the etch pit was established based on cellular automata to study the evolution law of corrosion damage to steel wire. This study showed that with the increase in the number of dry-wet cycles in the electrified accelerated corrosion, the macro- and micromorphology of the steel wire showed more serious corrosion damage, the tensile strength decreased, the ductility index decreased, and the tensile strength of the steel wire after corrosion decreased by nearly 5%; the geometric dimension of the steel wire etch pits all met a right-skewed distribution with a broader range of etch pit depth, mainly consisting of shallow spherical etch pits and deep ellipsoidal etch pits. The length, width, and depth sizes were mainly distributed in the range of 0.005 mm to 0.015 mm, 0.005 mm to 0.02 mm, and 0 mm to 0.04 mm; at the early stage of corrosion, the etch pits were first developed along the longitudinal direction. As the corrosion process progressed, the iron matrix participated in the electrochemical reaction, leading to the rapid expansion of the etch pits’ dimensions. The stress concentration effect at the bottom of the etch pit caused the maximum stress to approach 1800 MPa, with a stress concentration coefficient of more than 3.0; when the cable anchorage system was located in the connecting sleeve and the threaded splice seam, where corrosion protection was prone to failure, the outer steel wire bore most of the corrosive effects, and the internal cable was less eroded by the corrosive medium.