Societies, standards and working parties — the present position in European standards for cathodic protection of concrete structures

Abstract

The concrete restoration techniques of cathodic protection, realkalization, chloride extraction and, by contrast, the more conventional forms of concrete repair, are distinguishable both in terms of market size, areas applied, technical acceptance or reliability, and recognition in terms of industry bodies and standards. The situation is further complicated by variations in all these respects, both around Europe and further afield. In an attempt to clarify the position, and, no doubt, at risk of adding to the apparent complexity, this paper compares these techniques in terms of their progress towards European standards, and by reflecting on the likely ‘routes through the standards’ when applying the techniques. Acknowledgement is made to the Society for Cathodic Protection of Reinforced Concrete, Concrete Repair Association, Concrete Society, Institute of Corrosion, British Standards Institution, and Comite´Europe´enne de Normalisation (CEN), to all of whose activities reference is made, but whose views are not necessarily those expressed by the author.