The vulnerability of concrete reinforcing steels to corrosion when depassivation occurs, typically in the presence of chloride, makes it important to understand the nature of the steels' passive films. In the Part I of the study, electrochemical techniques and Mott-Schottky analysis were used to investigate these films formed on five different grades of stainless steel and carbon steel reinforcing bars exposed to simulated concrete pore solution. The influence of the steel composition and surface finish on Mott-Schottky plots and the electronic properties are discussed in relation to the steels' corrosion resistance. A p-type semiconductor behaviour was observed in the stainless steel alloys in the cathodic potential regions and an n-type in the anodic potential regions. The n-type behaviour is similar to that observed in the carbon steel.

Knowledge of the critical chloride content in concrete required to initiate corrosion of reinforcing steel is economically beneficial for the assessment and maintenance of existing structures. Also, many building codes now specify a service life of 75 – 100 years for highway bridges and the critical chloride content is an essential input parameter in the models used in design of structures.  There have been numerous studies aimed at determining this parameter but there is no consensus because of the many factors influencing the corrosion.  The current standard methods, e.g. ASTM G109, require many weeks or months of testing and are not appropriate for testing large numbers of specimens in different conditions. This project has demonstrated that a fairly rapid potentiodynamic polarization technique can be applied to carbon steel reinforcing bars in synthetic concrete pore solution to determine the critical value, as illustrated in the figure. The importance of selecting the appropriate synthetic concrete pore solution for this application is demonstrated by the different critical values obtained for different solutions.  The success of this test will allow the influence of different reinforcing alloys and different cementitious material mixes on the critical chloride content to be determined in a reasonable period of time.

No abstract

A study has been conducted of the chloride-induced corrosion behavior of four different batches of galvanized steel reinforcement embedded in sound and in cracked concrete. One batch of bars was of conventionally produced hot-dipped galvanized (HDG) steel, two were prototypes of continuously galvanized rebar, and the fourth was a hot-dipped bar with an experimental Zn-Al alloy coating. Carbon (black) steel bars were also tested for comparison purposes. The continuously galvanized process is aimed at producing a thinner, but more ductile coating than that formed by conventionally hot-dipped galvanizing process. Metallographic examination of the as-received galvanized bars showed a wide variation of the coating thickness around and along the bars, and the continuously galvanized coatings were consistently thinner than specified. All bars were cast in concrete which was subsequently cracked either parallel to or perpendicular to the embedded bars. Additional specimens were tested in the sound (non-cracked) concrete. All specimens were constantly exposed to a chloride brine for 64 weeks, and were electrochemically assessed bi-weekly during the exposure period. The electrochemical results and visual examination after autopsy showed that no active corrosion was initiated in either the galvanized or black rebar reinforced non-cracked concrete specimens. Therefore, the data in this project give no indication of initiation time or chloride threshold concentration for corrosion of these bars. On the other hand, in all cracked concrete specimens, corrosion initiated at the base of the crack and extended along or around the bars. In the cracked specimens, all galvanized bars exhibited lower current densities than the black bars, with the HDG being the lowest. Recommendations are given for appropriate interpretation of half-cell potentials of the galvanized bars investigated in terms of high or low probability of active corrosion.

No abstract