• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.1-13
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• 2022

This study aims to investigate the feasibility of the half-cell potential (HCP) measurements on the concrete surface for evaluation of corrosion rate (or corrosion levels) of reinforcing steel in concrete. A series of experimental study is performed to measure HCP (or corrosion potential, E_corr) and corrosion current density (i_corr) of reinforcing steel in concrete cube specimens, with a side length of 200 mm. Various corrosion levels in a range of 0% to 20% of the test specimens are accelerated by impressing current to the reinforcing steel in concrete immersed in 3.0 % NaCl solution. HCP is measured in accordance with ASTM C876-15, and corrosion current density is determined by using the Stern-Geary equation and measured polarization resistance measured by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). As a result, a numerical formula that relates HCP and i_corr in the test specimen is established by a regression analysis of the measured data in this study. It is observed that HCP is linearly correlated with log(i_corr) with a R² greater than 0.87, which is less affected by the experimental variables such as concrete mixture proportion, diameter of reinforcing steel and the amount of applied current in this study. These results exhibit that HCP measurements could be effective for evaluation of corrosion rate (or corrosion levels) of reinforcing steel in concrete in the case of exposed to a certain consistent environment.