Effects of pitting corrosion on the mechanical behavior of Tempcore steel bars

Corrosion of rebars is one of the main issues affecting the service life of Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures and assessing the mechanical behaviour of structures affected by corrosion has become a major task. Tempcore steel bars are generally used in practice in RC structures and are characterized by a specific composite microstructure, consisting of three discrete structures: martensitic outer annulus, bainitic transition zone and perlitic/ferritic core. This article studies the mechanical behaviour of Tempcore bars affected by pitting corrosion. These rebars were extracted from cracked concrete specimens subjected to wet-dry weekly cycles in a water solution containing 5% of NaCl for 280 days. This corrosion procedure led to pit depth able to affect both the martensitic outer annulus and the bainitic transition zone of reinforcement.