Environmentally-assisted microstructural integrity of commercial cold drawn pearlitic steel wires

Abstract

This paper deals with environmentally-assisted microstructural integrity of commercial cold drawn pearlitic steel wires to be used as prestressing steel wires for prestressed concrete in civil engineering structures. The article contains a fractographic analysis of the fracture surfaces of initially-smooth samples of commercial prestressing steel wires subjected to tensile tests in aggressive environment promoted by a corrosion cell consisting of the metallic sample and a three-electrode assembly. Two testing rates were used: one moderately fast (0,1 mm/min) and another moderately slow (0,01 mm/min). The electro-chemical potential used covers a wide range (from –400 to –1400 mV SCE), thus including from anodic to cathodic conditions. The main objective is focused on the study of the fracture surface for those specimens that failed due to the aggressive environment (inside corrosion cell). The analysis of the fracture surface is made by considering the different domains of the micro-fracture map (MFM).