Evaluation of electrochemical behavior of repair systems for concrete structures with reinforcement corrosion.

Author(s)

Maurício Luiz Grochoski Garcia

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola Politécnica (EP/BC)
• Defense date: 2008-04-14

Examining board members

Paulo Roberto do Lago Helene; Antonio Domingues de Figueiredo; Enio Jose Pazini Figueiredo; Antonio Alberto Nepomuceno; Leonel Tula Sanabria

• Advisor: Paulo Roberto do Lago Helene

Abstract

Social and economic costs due to reinforcement corrosion are becoming even more significant all over the world, in developed countries and also in under development ones. In 2004, Germany has spent approximately 90 billion euros with maintenance and repair of concrete structures, what corresponds to 50% of all money spent on Germany\'s civil construction sector. In Italy, this percentage is even greater, reaching 57% (UEDA & TAKEWAKA, 2007). These facts show an increase in the world market of maintenance and repair of concrete structures. There are already many maintenance and repair solutions available and there are more solutions being released every day. Due to this great diversity of solutions, the engineer responsible for recommending their use, must know properly their behavior and real efficiency. This study aimed to evaluate the electrochemical behavior of six different repair systems for concrete with reinforcement corrosion, on-site and in the laboratory. On site an evaluation and comparison method based on corrosion potential and intensity was proposed and applied. In the laboratory, besides these parameters, physical and mechanical ones were also evaluated. Despite the experiment\'s short duration (2 years), the on-site results showed interesting behavior trends for the evaluated systems, allowing some important information about them to be extracted. Nevertheless, the proposed method has showed itself to be very promising. The results obtained in thelaboratory have made great contribution on understanding the systems repair\'s behaviors. Furthermore they showed the complexity of this theme and the necessity of consideration of all playing variables. (AU)