Accelerated Cyclic Corrosion Testing of Steel Member Inside Concrete

Steel members in composite structures of steel and concrete, such as composite girder bridges, guardrails, and steel piers, are often partially embedded in concrete members. The corroded steel members inside concrete were recently fractured because of corrosion damage. This study investigates the time-dependent corrosion behavior of a steel plate inside concrete by performing an accelerated cyclic corrosion test, which was specified in the ASTM D 6899-03, on composite model specimens of painted steel plates with concrete block for 100, 200, 400 and 600 cycles. The surface geometry of the corroded steel plates was measured at a 1 × 1 mm interval using an optical 3D measurement system after the corrosion productions were removed. The corrosion characteristic, that is, the changes in the corrosion growth, corrosion depth, and the corrosion depth distribution with testing time, was statistically analyzed.