Corrosion Monitoring and Service Life Prediction of Rebars in Structural Concrete: State-of-Review

Abstract

A vast governmental budget is spent annually, worldwide, to face corrosion problems of steel reinforcement in concrete bridges attributable to the extensive use of de-icing salts and is a worldwide durability problem. Corrosion controls the lifetime of a structural system, which has two distinct periods. During the first period, chlorides diffuse through the cover. When sufficient chlorides are formed at the rebars, corrosion initiates. This marks the start of the second period, during which rust with higher volume to bare steel is produced, and this happens mainly when the protective alkaline passive film, formed during the process of cement hydration around rebars, is broken. Several electrochemical methods are suggested in the published literature for the determination of corrosion rate in the rebar. All methods have some positive and negative points in their favour. This paper intends to present a summary of these research studies and outlines various preventive measures, methods of corrosion monitoring and service life prediction models that can be employed to minimize the rate of corrosion.