Corrosion by chlorides in reinforced concrete: Determination of chloride concentration threshold by impedance spectroscopy

Chloride penetration in reinforced concrete induces depassivation of the steel rebars and initiation of the corrosion process leading to degradation of the structure. The coupling of “low-frequency” impedance response with SEM observations and multielementary analyses emphasized that the strong decrease of the capacitive part is related to the corrosion initiation. This experimentally determined incubation period is used in an electrodiffusion model based on Fick's second law to quantify the chloride concentration threshold responsible for corrosion initiation on the reinforcing steel surface. This work thus allowed quantifying the incubation period and the critical chloride concentration, referred to in Tuutti's diagram [K. Tuutti, Corrosion of steel in concrete, CBI Research Report no. 4.82, Swedish Cement and Concrete Research Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, 1982].