Seawater exposure of reinforced concrete specimens made with chloride-contaminated raw materials

In chloride bearing environment, stainless steel reinforcing bars are one of the options to guarantee the durability of a reinforced concrete structure. This type of reinforcement would also allow to overcome the constraints imposed by the standards related to the maximum amount of chlorides admitted in the raw materials for the concrete production. Within the SEACON-INFRAVATION project, experimental tests were carried out with the aim of investigating the corrosion behaviour of stainless steel rebars, both austenitic and duplex, and for comparison of carbon steel bars, embedded in concretes made with chloride-contaminated raw materials and exposed to the further chloride penetration for about two years. Results showed that, during the exposure period, corrosion did not initiate in any of the stainless steel bars employed in this study, even when the chloride content at the depth of the bars was around 4% vs mass of binder.