Electrochemical behaviour of steel reinforced concrete during accelerated corrosion testing

Corrosion of reinforcing steel presents a major durability issue worldwide and is the focus of much research activity. The long time periods involved in replicating reinforcement corrosion within laboratories has resulted in a number of accelerated test methods being developed. The basis of this research presented in this paper was to examine the impressed current technique often used to induce reinforcement corrosion. The suitability of the technique to model chloride induced corrosion was investigated by examining the electrochemical nature of the test method. Corrosion was induced in prisms of differing characteristic strengths and cover thicknesses by applying a current for between 3 and 17 days. The gravimetrical and theoretical mass losses are compared and a modified expression based on Faraday’s law relating the electrical current to the mass loss is also proposed which accounts for the localised nature of chloride-induced corrosion. It was found that the technique is a suitable method to simulate reinforcement corrosion.