Effects of Corrosion to the Performance of Steel Reinforcement Embedded in Concrete under Different Aggressive Environments

The corrosion of reinforcement steel bars in concrete has been established as the major factor causingwidespread degradation of concrete structures. Corrosion of reinforcement in concrete leads to reduction ofgood bonding between steel and concrete, decrease of steel cross-sectional area, cracking and loss ofserviceability. This paper investigates the behavior and Performance of reinforcement bar embedded inconcrete structure under a variety of aggressive environments. The study used 16 mm diameterreinforcement bars embedded in concrete with a uniform cover of 50 mm in 200 mm x 200 mm x 750 mmconcrete beam, the curing period of concrete is 28 days. After completion of 28 days’ moisture curing period,the beam was loaded in flexure causing cracking of the concrete, thereby exposing the steel reinforcements.The cracked reinforced concrete beams were then immersed in different aggressive solutions of H2So4(Sulfuric Acid), HCl (hydrochloric acid), HNO3 (hydrogen trioxonitrate), NaOH (sodium hydroxide) and NaCl(Sodium Chloride) for a duration of six months. At the end of this curing period, the embedded steelreinforcement was removed and cleaned off the attached concrete, and then tested for change in strength,diameter, and weight loss. The results obtained shows that corrosion affect steel reinforcement in concreteunder HCl, H2SO4 and HNO3 with 15%,13% and 11% very high rate change in strength respectively. Also, theNaCl and HCl, were recorded with 15% and 11% very high rate effects on reduction/addition in diameter ofsteel reinforcement respectively. And finally, the HCl, and H2SO4 were recorded with 24.1% having the sameand very high rate effects on reduction in weight (weight loss).