Performance assessment of partially corrosion-damaged RC segment incorporating the spatial variability of steel corrosion

•A random field-based approach to modeling the localized steel corrosion is proposed.•Tensile stress has a significant effect on the feature of corrosion damage in segment.•Ultimate bearing capacity is affected by the spatial variation of corrosion in rebars.•Larger loading eccentricity exacerbates the capacity loss of corroded RC segment. Steel corrosion is a dominant source of structural performance deterioration for reinforced concrete (RC) shield tunnels, which is always spatially nonuniform and discretely distributed in RC segmental linings. To accurately estimate the deteriorated performance of RC segmental linings under coupling actions of flexural and axial loads, the research on the mechanical behavior of RC segments has to be integrated with the effects of nonuniform steel corrosion and loading eccentricity. In this paper, the failure modes of corroded RC segmental specimens and their damaging evolution under ultimate loading were experimentally investigated, and the effects of spatial variability of steel corrosion and level of sustained load were discussed. A probabilistic model for simulating the spatial variability of steel corrosion within a partial length of longitudinal reinforcement was proposed. Finally, Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) incorporated with finite element (FE) analysis was performed to investigate the strength loss of corroded RC segmental specimens, emphasizing on the effects of spatial distribution of steel cross-section area loss, degree of steel corrosion and eccentricity of loading.