Big milestones in the study of steel corrosion in concrete

Rebars corrosion in concrete has been neglected for a long time in the scientific literature and reinforced concrete was considered as an “eternal” material. Only during the sixties, and more during the ‘70s and the ‘80s, several research groups and many corrosion schools gave important contributions. An important contribution was also given by italian researchers thanks to Universities of Roma, Napoli, Ancona, Ferrara, Bergamo and Politecnico di Milano, where professor Pietro Pedeferri and its school contributed to the study of stainless steel reinforcements, corrosion inhibitors, service life modelling, cathodic protection and prevention, the latter proposed by Pedeferri in the early ‘90s. The paper is dedicated to the memory of Pietro Pedeferri (1938-2008) and Luca Bertolini (1966-2017).