Damage on lining concrete in highway tunnels under combined sulfate and chloride attack

The combined effect from sulfate and chloride is one of the important reasons to cause the damage of lining concrete in highway tunnels. To investigate the effect of chloride ions on the corrosion of lining concretes under sulfate attack, ultrasonic detecting, compression test and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) were performed on the concretes to obtain the ultrasonic velocity, corrosion thickness, compression strength and corrosion products. The ultrasonic results, compression strength and XRD patterns confirmed that the existence of chloride certainly depressed the corrosion damage on the lining concretes under sulfate attack, and the depressing effect increased with the content of chloride in the composite solution. The corrosion damage on the concretes experienced three stages independent of the composition of corrosive solution: initial slower enhancement on the strength, stabilization period and linear degradation period. The existence of chloride mainly affected the final degradation stage and obviously decreased the corrosion thickness.