Report

Corrosion of steel in concrete at various moisture and chloride levels

Updated 2024-08-22 Published 2019-10-24

The most frequent deterioration mechanism of concrete structures is arguably corrosion of reinforcement steel in concrete. One very important factor for corrosion and almost all other concrete deterioration mechanisms is the moisture condition of the concrete. Cooling water tunnels in Swedish nuclear power plants have been exposed to seawater for about 30-40 years. This means that issues caused by rebar corrosion might increase in the future.

Generally, corrosion of steel in concrete is induced by either carbonation or by chlorides. Carbonation means that carbon dioxide in air reacts with calcium within the concrete. In the present study, samples made of steel cast in chloride containing mortar were exposed to different moisture conditions. The moisture condition was either static at a certain relative humidity or dynamic where the relative humidity was cycling between 75% and 100%

The work presented in this licentiate thesis has been carried out partly at the Division of Building Materials, Lund University, and partly at Swerea KIMAB, Stockholm.

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Corrosion of steel in concrete Energiforskrapport 2015:133
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About the report

Report number

2015:133

Author

Johan Ahlström