Corrosion behaviors of cement mortar specimens with different cover thickness in natural sea water

Abstract

This paper presents electrochemical corrosion behaviors of cement mortar specimens in the high salinity condition. Chloride ion is known as the most detrimental parameter to cause the corrosion in reinforced concrete. Increasing the concrete cover thickness is one of the corrosion protection methods against chloride ion; so, this study mainly focuses on the effects of mortar cover thickness on corrosion protection. In specimens, rebar, which was a height of 200 mm and a diameter of 10 mm, was installed at the center of the small size form. Later on, mortar was injected into the form, and 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 mm of the different mortar cover thicknesses were selected. Potential measurements, linear polarization resistance tests, and cyclic potentiodynamic polarization tests were performed for specimens that were exposed to seawater. These results were compared with visual inspection results of rebar. The results show that an increase in the cover thickness contributes to corrosion protection. In addition, the result of electrochemical corrosion tests generally agreed with that of an autopsy visual inspection.