Carbonation of concrete is a process by which carbon dioxide (CO2) in the ambient air penetrates the material and reacts with hydration products to form calcite (CaCO_3). This phenomenon strongly favours corrosion of reinforced concrete, since the protection of embedded steel bars can be depassivated due to the induced drop of pH. Consequently, concrete should be resistant to carbonation in order to prevent corrosion that is recognized as the most important durability problem for reinforced concrete structures. However, these processes take many years to occur and carbonation experiments are generally performed in accelerated conditions. Therefore durability models are necessary for predicting the service life of cement-based materials. Many analytical or numerical models (e.g. [1-6]) have been proposed in literature for estimating the durability properties of cement-based materials. The present paper aims at comparing three different carbonation models [1-3] with well documented experimental results in order to test their reliability.
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