Effect of Alkali-silica Reaction (ASR) on Steel-concrete Bond

While significant effort has been dedicated to studying flexural and shear strength of concrete affected by alkali-silica reaction (ASR), bond behaviour and anchorage strength of steel bars and metal anchors embedded in ASR concrete have frequently been overlooked. Bond stress-slip response was studied by means of pullout specimens, both plain and reinforced, to examine the effects of confinement on bond of ASR concrete subjected to different levels of deterioration. Additionally, bond properties in the beam flexural tension regions were also investigated. Lastly, tensile testing of headed bolts cast in unreinforced ASR concrete was conducted as a pilot series of tests. While effect of ASR on the normalized bond strength of confined concrete was negligible, up to 20% reduction in peak bond stresses was observed in unconfined specimens. For the given amount of free expansion, ASR did not detrimentally affect the breakout concrete capacity of anchor bolts embedded in reactive concrete.