Abstract
Experience has shown that many aspects of experimental design for studying steel corrosion in cementitious systems may significantly influence the obtained results. In the absence of standardized methods to study steel corrosion in concrete, researchers usually define their own test setups, which partially explains the large scatter and uncertainty in the aggregated published data. When the details of these setups are not provided adequately, experimental results cannot be interpreted in a wider context. Unfortunately, many scientific publications lack important experimental details. Therefore, this paper aims at improving the quality of reported experimental details, observations, and data in scientific publications, and raising awareness for relevant issues to improve the quality of research in the field. To this end, this paper provides a list of experimental details that have been found important by many decades of research, and which are, thus, recommended to be considered in conducting and reporting laboratory studies involving corrosion of steel embedded in cementitious systems. Finally, we propose a checklist for reporting experimental data in scientific publications.
Highlights
It is well documented that the reported critical chloride thresholds in the literature cover a wide range: thresholds represented as total chloride content from experiments with steel embedded in cement‐based material in laboratory conditions vary between 0.04 and 8.34% mass of the binder [1]
Regarding “corrosion at air voids”, it is recommended to accurately describe if corrosion occurred on the part of the metal surface exposed in the concrete void, or if it occurred on the metal surface directly adjacent to the void
While the ingress of chlorides is fastest under applied electrical voltage, it is well established that application of an external voltage can affect the chemical composition of the concrete matrix, as well as the corrosion mechanism of reinforcement [56]
Summary
Rather frequently, interpreting of experimental data from certain studies can be difficult when comparing and reviewing literature because important details of the conditions under which the results were produced are not reported. This unsatisfactory situation highlights the need and constitutes the motivation for our contribution. It is well documented that the reported critical chloride thresholds in the literature cover a wide range: thresholds represented as total chloride content from experiments with steel embedded in cement‐based material in laboratory conditions vary between 0.04 and 8.34% mass of the binder [1] This scatter is related to the physics of the problem, and to the experimental setup and interpretation. Additional information on the microstructure, such as phases present, grain size, etc. can be included if relevant to the study being conducted
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