Proceedings of the International rilem conference Materials, Systems and Structures in Civil Engineering 2016

68

International RILEM Conference on Materials, Systems and Structures in Civil Engineering 

Conference segment on Service Life of Cement-Based Materials and Structures

22-24 August 2016, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark 

 

References 

 

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[2] Benboudjema, F. and Torrenti, J.-M., ‘Early-age behaviour of concrete nuclear 

containments’, Nuclear Engineering and Design 238 (2008) 2495-2506. 

[3]  Ithurralde, G., ‘The permeability observed by the prescriber’, in the ‘Colloque Béton à 

hautes performances’, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Cachan, 1989. (in french) 

[4] ConCrack: International Benchmark for Control of Cracking in R.C. Structures, in 

'www.concrack.org', 2011. 

[5]  Mazars J., 1986. A description of micro and macroscale damage of concrete. Engineering 

Fracture Mechanics 25:729–737 

[6]  Feenstra PH. Computational aspects of biaxial stress in plain and reinforced concrete. 

PhD thesis. TU Delft; 1993. 

[7]  Hillerborg A, Modéer M, Petersson P-E. 1976. Analysis of crack formation and crack 

growth in concrete by means of fracture mechanics and finite elements. Cem Concr Res 

6(6):773–81. 

[8] Torrenti, J.M. and Buffo-Lacarrière, L., ‘On the variability of temperature fields in 

massive concrete structures at early age’, in ‘2nd International Symposium on Service 

Life Design for Infrastructures’, Proceedings of an International Conference, Delft, 2010 

893-900. 

[9]  Briffaut, M., Benboudjema, F., Torrenti, J.-M. and Nahas, G., ‘Numerical analysis of the 

thermal active restrained shrinkage ring test to study the early age behavior of massive 

concrete structures’, Engineering Structures, 33(4) (2011) 1390-1401. 

[10] 

Michou A., Hilaire A., Benboudjema F., Nahas G., Wyniecki P., Berthaud Y., 

Reinforcement-concrete bond behavior: experimentation in drying conditions and meso-

scale modeling, Engineering Structures, 2015, 101 (15), 2015, p. 570–582. 

[11] Lagier F., Jourdain X., De Sa C., Benboudjema F., Colliat J.B., Numerical strategies for 

prediction of drying cracks in heterogeneous materials: comparison upon experimental 

results, Engineering Structures, 33 (3), 2011, p. 920 – 931. 

[12] Besnard, G., Hild, F., Roux, S., 2006. Finite-element displacement fields analysis from 

digital images: Application to Portevin-Le Châtelier bands. Exp. Mech. 46: 789-804. 

 

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69

International RILEM Conference on Materials, Systems and Structures in Civil Engineering 

Conference segment on Service Life of Cement-Based Materials and Structures 

22-24 August 2016, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark 

 

SERVICE LIFE DESIGN AND ASSESSMENT FOR CONCRETE 

STRUCTURES IN HZM SEA LINK PROJECT FOR 120 YEARS 

 

Kefei Li 

(1)

, Dongdong Zhang 

(1)

, Quanwang Li 

(1)

 

 

(1) Civil Engineering Department, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract 

The ongoing mega project of Hong Kong – Zhuhai-Macau (HZM) sea link project consists of 

sea bridges of 28.8km, an immersed tube tunnel of 6.8 km and two offshore artificial islands. 

One of the major challenges of this project is to ensure a service life of 120 years for the 

concrete structures in a rather aggressive marine environment. This paper gives a 

comprehensive presentation on the durability design and the durability assessment for the 

concrete elements and structures in the project. For the durability design, the general 

philosophy and approaches are given for the concrete elements, and model-based design is 

conducted for the carbonation-induced and chloride induced corrosion of steel rebars. The 

durability requirements are obtained from this model-based design process. During the 

construction phase, the durability requirements are represented by quality control parameters, 

and in-situ tests are performed to collect the data for these parameters. On the basis of the 

statistical properties of these parameters, the achieved durability extent of concrete elements 

is evaluated through a systematic durability assessment process. On the basis of the 

assessment results, a preliminary maintenance planning is formulated for the service life 

 

 

1. Project 

introduction 

 

The HZM project links the cities of Zhuhai and Macau on the South-eastern coast of China 

mainland and the city of Hong Kong (HK) across the water region of Ling’ding Ocean. The 

total length of project is near 36km, consisting of sea bridges of 28.8 km, two offshore 

artificial islands and an immerged tube tunnel of 6.8 km. The traffic capacity is 6 lanes in dual 

direction with a design speed of 100km/h. The design working life of the whole project is 120 

years [1]. The preliminary study of project began from 2008 to 2010, the detailed study phase 

started from 2010 and construction works are expected to end in 2017. The general view of 

HZM project is illustrated in Figure 1. 

 

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70

International RILEM Conference on Materials, Systems and Structures in Civil Engineering 

Conference segment on Service Life of Cement-Based Materials and Structures 

22-24 August 2016, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark 

 

 

Figure 1: General view of HZM sea link project 

 

The sea bridges consist of four navigable spans and non-navigable spans of 28.8km. The 

structure for the three navigable spans is cable-stayed bridge while the Hong Kong side span 

adopts continuous beam structure. These spans are connected by 110m non-navigable spans 

of continuous beam with steel box-girder. Except for the pylons and auxiliary piers in the 

navigable spans, all the piers and the bearing-platforms of sea bridges are prefabricated in 

segments and assembled in place. The immerged tube tunnel is made of concrete, consisting 

of four in-place segments (112.5m each) and 27 prefabricated segments (180m each). The 

cross section of the tunnel tube is 38m 11.4m with wall thickness of 1.5m. The prefabricated 

segments of immersed tunnel are made in factory near the project site and transported to the 

project site by floating-sinking method. Two artificial islands are constructed serving as the 

connections between the sea bridges and the immersed tunnels. The area of artificial islands is 

nearly 200,000 m

2

, constructed with the help of cofferdam made from sand-filled steel tubes.  

 

The HZM project is exposed to the subtropical marine monsoon climate. The annual average 

temperature is between 22.3~23.1ºC. The annual average humidity is between 77%~80% with 

large seasonal variation. The sea water salinity is 32.9 for eastern part and 25.4 for western 

part (bottom on sea bed), and lowest salinity is recorded as 8.1 and 10.4 for eastern and 

western regions. The concentration of Cl

-

 in sea water is between 10700~17020 mg/L and the 

sulfate ions (SO

4

2-

) between 1140~2260 mg/L. The pH values of sea water are between 

6.65~8.63. On the basis of hydrology data, the exposure zones are evaluated as: atmospheric 

zone (>+6.26m), splashing zone (+6.26m~-0.40m), tidal zone (-0.40m~-2.10m) and 

immerged zone (<-2.10m). 

 

 

2.  Durability design for 120 years 

 

2.1 Design philosophy 

For the concrete structures exposed to the marine environments of project site, the possible 

deterioration mechanisms include: the carbonation-induced corrosion of reinforcement steel 

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