Effect of Impressed current technique on the mechanical behaviour of steel reinforcement in concrete

Reinforcement steel in concrete structures is often subjected to corrosion due to exposition to environmental elements that affect the materials during service life. The process of corrosion takes a long time due to the presence of concrete, that covers steel elements, and needs particular environmental conditions. Many techniques available in the literature were used to reproduce these conditions and investigate the degree of damage, despite it is difficult to achieve a significant degree of reinforcement corrosion in a short time. Accelerated corrosion by means of the impressed current technique is widely used to evaluate durability of concrete. In this study three different current density levels were adopted to induce corrosion in reinforced-concrete cubes. The influence of corrosion on the mechanical behavior of reinforcement was finally evaluated performing pull-out tests after treatment period.