Durability experimental study and service life evaluation of basalt-PVA fibre-reinforced concrete in chloride-rich environments

To investigate the impact of chloride salt corrosion on the durability of both basalt fibre-reinforced concrete and basalt-PVA hybrid-fibre concrete, this study takes the impermeability of fibre-reinforced concrete as a baseline to examine the diffusion and penetration behaviour of chloride ions. By applying Fick’s second law, the chloride ion diffusion coefficients at various erosion depths and exposure durations were calculated, and their time-dependent characteristics were evaluated. The findings indicate that the use of basalt fibres alone decreases the electrical flux of concrete and enhances its impermeability. The incorporation of fibres at an optimized 7:3 hybrid ratio improved the impermeability of the concrete, with characteristic strengths of C30 and C40. At identical erosion depths and exposure periods, the chloride ion content in the concrete with only basalt fibres is lower than that in the hybrid fibre system, and both are lower than that in conventional concrete. The chloride ion diffusion coefficient increases with erosion depth but decreases as the exposure period is prolonged; notably, the coefficient for the basalt fibre concrete is lower than that for the hybrid fibre variant. The time decay coefficients of fibre-reinforced concrete exceed those of standard concrete, with basalt fibre-reinforced concrete exhibiting a higher decay coefficient than hybrid fibre-reinforced concrete.The results indicate that the durability and service life of basalt fibre-reinforced concrete are superior to those of hybrid fibre-reinforced concrete.