Chloride penetration into concrete structures in the marine atmosphere zone – Relationship between deposition of chlorides on the wet candle and chlorides accumulated into concrete

Abstract

Abstract The relationship between chlorides from marine aerosol and chlorides accumulated into concrete is discussed in this paper. The experimental programme comprised an environmental characterisation, with climatic and chloride deposition data, and a study of chloride penetration into concrete based on natural exposure of specimens in a marine atmosphere zone. Results show that salt concentration in marine aerosol strongly decreases in the first meters from the sea. Chlorides present in the atmosphere can be studied using the wet candle method and correlated with chlorides accumulated into concrete. This relationship can be represented by the equation C tot = C 0 + k d · D ac , where k d is a coefficient which depends on concrete and environmental characteristics, C tot is the average total amount of chlorides accumulated into concrete, C 0 is the chloride content in concrete before exposure and D ac is the accumulated dry deposition of chlorides.