37º IAHS World Congress on Housing: - Universidad de Cantabria

XXXVII <strong>IAHS</strong><strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> on HousingOctober 26 – 29, 2010, Santander, SpainCODE: 940EVALUATION OF CORROSION EFFECT IN REINFORCEDCONCRETE BY CHLORIDE EXPOSURE – FIRST RESULTSGiovanni Loreto *, Renato Iovino *** Phd student, Department of Urban and Regional Planning University of Napoli “Federico II”, Napoli, Italy;giovanni.loreto@unina.it** Full professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning University of Napoli “Federico II”, Napoli, Italye-mail: reiovino@unina.itKey words: corrosion, concrete, accelerated test, rebar, service lifeAbstractDurability is generally described as the ability of a material to maintain its physical and mechanicalproperties over time. In reinforce concrete (RC) structures, concrete is the ideal material to protect(cover) the steel reinforcement, given its high alkalinity. In environments subjected to highlyaggressive conditions (mostly due to the presence of chlorides) concrete may lose its protectivecharacteristics causing then the corrosion of the steel reinforcement and accelerating the ageing.Concrete degradation and steel reinforcement corrosion are phenomena closely connected.The aim of this work is the characterization of the relationship between corrosion of the steelreinforcement and concrete degradation, subjected to ageing by means of accelerate test in salt(chloride) environmental. The accelerated corrosion test is developed by the method of linearpolarization, used for identification of corrosion rate of the steel rebar. In this feature the values ofresidual strength characteristics of the material can be obtained, in relation with both the corrosion rateand width of cracks. If the time to reach a certain concentration and the corrosion speed of the rebarsare known, it is possible to draw a graph to predict the work life of the concrete cover.This paper shows the results these tests.37º <strong>IAHS</strong> <strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> On Housing Science 313