Open Access Conference Proceedings

Early steel bars corrosion in reinforced concrete elements are difficult to detect because of the lack of visible changes on the concrete surface. To assess reinforcement corrosion risk level without structure damage some non-destructive diagnostic methods are applied. One of them is the galvanostatic pulse method. This semi-non-destructive electrochemical method allows to determine the corrosion areas and estimate the steel bars corrosion activity. Using this method it is possible to measure some electrical parameters (corrosion current density, stationary potential and reinforcement concrete cover resistivity) that allow to indirectly estimate the reinforcement corrosion progress in concrete. So far this method has been generally applied to bridges. The article presents results of studies in which the galvanostatic pulse method was used to determine reinforcement corrosion risk in structures elements different than bridges. Two types of reinforced concrete columns were tested under different environment conditions and two groups of laboratory specimens which were subjected to freezing and thawing cycles in NaCl solution or stayed in natural air–dry conditions. The apparatus GP-5000 GalvaPulseTM was used. Based on the obtained results the conclusions were drawn. The galvanostatic pulse method allows to assess the progress of the reinforcement corrosion process in tested elements. However, it is necessary to measure simultaneously all parameters and make their complex analysis.

Keywords: Steel bar, reinforcement corrosion, non-destructive test method, laboratory test, filed test

© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.