Long-term performance of reinforced concrete under a de-icing road environment

Journal article, 2023

In the middle of 1990, over 30 different mixes of concretes with eight different binders and water-binder ratios of 0.3 to 0.75 were exposed to a highway environment with a heavy de-icing salt spread for the examination of long-term performance, including chloride penetration, reinforcement corrosion and frost attack. This paper presents the results from this long-term study regarding chloride penetration and reinforcement corrosion. The results show that the chloride penetration in concretes under a de-icing salt road environment is much weaker than that in concretes under marine splash environment in Sweden. The estimated critical chloride content for the corrosion initiation is about 0.3 % by mass of binder for rebars with uncracked concrete cover. Considering the chloride redistribution in the surface zone, ClinConc model has been modified so that it can present a better description of the chloride profiles in the concretes at such an exposure site.