Preliminary Investigation of Carbonation Problem Progress in Concrete buildings of North Cyprus

Carbonation process is regarded as one of the most critical durability problem in concrete. As a result of carbonation process, the pH level in concrete is reduced and corrosion of reinforcements initiates, yielding significant damage both in reinforcements and concrete. This study, aimed to investigate experimentally on evaluation performance of existing reinforced-concrete structures prone to carbonation in North Cyprus. Five inland and five coastal concrete structures of ages varying between 10 and 41 years were selected as the focus of this study. The compressive strength was determined by testing concrete core samples extracted from the selected structures. Same core samples used for determination of carbonation depth, carbonation in the samples was measured by using phenolphthalein indicator test. A contribution to the related literature on carbonation resistance performance of concrete structures under varying exposure conditions of North Cyprus was made for the very first time with the results obtained from this study. Results shows that inland structures have more carbonation depths when compared with structures located in coastal areas. The result also shows that the final carbonation depths observed in the structures are highly depended on the age, initial quality of the concrete as well as the exact local exposure conditions.