Electrochemical Study on the Corrosion Behavior of Reinforcing Steel in Alkaline Solutions

The corrosion of reinforcing steel in concrete is the main reason for the premature degradation of a reinforced concrete structure. Study on the depassivation behavior of reinforcing steel is of great importance to the investigation on the corrosion and protection of steel in concrete (1). In this work, the potentiodynamic anodic polarization and scanning reference electrode technique (SRET) were used to study the localized corrosion behavior of the reinforcing steel in alkaline solutions with different pH values and chloride ion concentrations. A saturated calcium hydroxide solution was used as an alkaline solution, and referred to as the simulated concrete pore solution for the reinforcing steel corrosion test. The Cl- concentration and pH in the test solution was adjusted by adding NaCl and NaHCO3 to the solution