Concrete corrosion project publishes results
Concrete corrosion project publishes results
Keywords: Concrete, Steel, Corrosion, United Kingdom
The publication of wide-ranging guidance on the challenges faced by those designing, building, maintaining and repairing reinforced concrete structures will shortly mark the completion of a major study of corrosion in concrete.
Corrosion of reinforcing steel in structures such as motorway bridges,buildings and marine installations is costing the UK an estimated £550m a year. Many of these structures continue to need extensive maintenance or replacement.
In addressing this problem, the project (conducted by Trend 2000 Ltd-led team from BRE, John Broomfield Consultancy and Risk Review Ltd) has established a data set of more than 160 UK structures on which to base a series of guidance publications covering key issues that include:
Corrosion rate measurement – a comparatively new technique to help engineers judge the long-term durability of new and existing structures.
Life prediction models for predicting the time to corrosion initiation and critical section loss, for carbonated and chloride infested structures.
European standards, soon to come into force and bring changes about which this project has produced the only currently available guidance.
Maintenance repair and monitoring, including the issues of health and safety and risk analysis.
Protection strategies for new structures – background and new developments, plus service life and whole life costing strategies.
NDT survey techniques guidance based on extensive field experience.
The project has also produced a summary of selected data from the project's extensive data set, a CD of more than 300 references on reinforcement corrosion,and a handbook on durable reinforcement.
The corrosion in concrete project was sponsored by the DTI under its "Degradation of materials in aggressive environments" programme – Area DME 5. 1. An authoritative Industrial Advisory Group supported the project to ensure that its outputs are relevant to current industrial needs.
The results of the project were discussed at a series of workshops/seminars held on 5 April at BRE, Watford and 24 April in Manchester. These took the form of a seminar on asset management and improved service life performance of reinforced concrete structures through the use of corrosion rate measurements.
A practical workshop was also held on 8 May at BRE, Watford, on the latest developments in non-destructive testing of reinforced concrete structures.
Details are available from BRE. Tel: +44 (0) 1923 664083, Fax: +44 (0) 1923 664606.
