Steel Dowel Bar Corrosion

In Concrete Pavement
 by Accelerated Test

PI: John Harvey

Jieying Zhang, Abdikarim Ali, and Mauricio Mancio

University of California at Berkeley

 Objective

• To study corrosion resistance of

commercially available steel dowel bars
serving under various weather conditions,
in order to to provide information for the
proper selection of steel dowels in
California.
 Outline
• Introduction
• Corrosion of steel in concrete
• Dowel bar in pavement

• Experimental Study
• Sample preparation + simulated exposure
• Tests: half-cell, linear polarization resistance, visual
check, mass loss, Chloride profiling and microscopy study

• Corrosion Resistance Evaluation

• Which kind of dowel has the greatest corrosion
resistance?

• Future study
• Combination of corrosion resistance and mechanical
performance
 Corrosion of Steel In
Concrete

-,
Penetration of Cl , O2, and H2O through
microcracks and pores
•Concrete
• pH 12.5-13.5
• defects (pores and cracks)
2OH-1/2O2 +H2O + 2e-
FeFe2+ + 2e-
electrons •Chloride ions

Anode Cathode + oxygen and water

 Corrosion Damage
• General attack
• Expansive products Fe(OH) ), (Fe O ) and (Fe O )
2 3 4 2 3

Volume 6 times greater than the iron

• Cracking concrete
Corrosion of dowel bar causes spalling and transverse cracking (Minnesota I-94)

Event Economic loss Reference

Corrosion damage of highway bridges, USA
$90-150 billion FHA, 1991
Annual cost of repair, USA $200-450 million TRB, 1991

• Particular In Concrete Pavement

Corrosion products ---- increasing bond
 Dowel bar in Concrete
Pavement
• Function
• Load Transfer---smoother ride
• More vulnerable to corrosion
attack
• Joints
• Bond Breaker
 Dowel Bar Corrosion
• Current Situation
• No much information available
• Unlike structural reinforcement
• mechanical function
• design
• Current Solution
•To coat steel!
Experiment: Dowel Bars

• Regular carbon steel (RS)

• Stainless steel hollow (SS)
• Epoxy-coated steel (EX)
• Stainless steel clad (XX)
1.5 in. in Diameter
 Exposure Conditions
• Temperature
• 40 F
• 120 F
• Moisture
• Dry
• Wet ( Chloride ponding, 3% NaCl solution)
Summary
4 exposure conditions 4 kinds of dowels
3 replicates in each condition
48 specimens in total
Specimen Preparation
• Dowels
• Cleaned, weighed (ASTM G1-90 )
• Lubricated--bond breaker
• Joint simulation
• Styrofoam breaker
• Concrete
• field mix procedure
• Specimen geometry
• Mold : 24 * 6 * 6 in.
• 1 in. on the top for Chloride ponding
 Curing Conditions

• 23C and 100% RH for 7 days

• Moved to simulated exposures after 7 days
• Experiment lasted 6 months
 Corrosion Monitoring
Methods
• Non-destructive
• Half-Cell Potential
• Linear Polarization Resistance
• Destructive
• Visual Check
• Mass loss
• Chloride profiling
• Corrosion damage on
microstructure of steel (SEM)
 Half-Cell Potential
Measurement (ASTM
( C876-91)
Electrochemical potential
of a sample over a reference
electrode
It tells:
• Corrosion probability of the
sample
•Change in the corrosion state
But for the epoxy-coated
• Potential is 0 for a perfect coat
• A potential value other than 0
indicates coat defected/damaged
 Half-cell Potential
Measurement setup

• Frequency: every other day

 Regular steel (120 F,
0
-50
Chloride) rs-4
-100 rs-5
-150 rs-6
Above this line (-0.2v), 90% probability that no corrosion occurs
-200
-250
-300
-350
Under this line (-0.35V), 90% probability that corrosion has occured
-400
-450
-500
-550
-600
-650
-700
-750
-800
-850
-900
-950
0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150 165 180
Age (day)

RS-5 has the longest corrosion history

 Regular steel (40 F,
0
-50
Chloride) rs-7
-100
rs-8
-150 Above this line (-0.2v), 90% probability that no corrosion occurs rs-9
-200
-250
-300
-350
-400 Under this line (-0.35V), 90% probability that corrosion has occured
-450
-500
-550
-600
-650
-700
-750
-800
-850
-900
-950
0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150 165 180
Age (day)

RS-8 has the shortest corrosion history

 Stainless steel (120 F,
Chloride)
0 0
-50 -50
-100 -100
-150 -150
-200 -200
-250 -250 Above this line (-0.2v), 90% probability that no corrosion occurs
Above this line (-0.2v), 90% probability that no corrosion occurs
-300 -300
-350 -350
-400 -400 Under this line (-0.35V), 90% probability that corrosion has occured
Under this line (-0.5V), 90% probability that corrosion has occured
-450 -450
-500 -500
-550 -550 xx-4
ss-4 xx-5
-600 ss-5 -600
xx-6
-650 ss-6 -650
-700 -700
-750 -750
-800 -800
-850 -850
-900 -900
-950 -950
0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150 165 180 0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150 165 180
Age (day) Age (day)

Stainless hollow Stainless clad

 Stainless steel (40 F,
0
Chloride) 0
-50 -50
ss-7
-100 -100
ss-8
-150 Above this line (-0.2v), 90% probability that no corrosion occurs ss-9 -150
-200 -200
-250 -250 Above this line (-0.2v), 90% probability that no corrosion occurs
-300 -300
-350 -350
-400 Under this line (-0.35V), 90% probability that corrosion has occured -400 Under this line (-0.35V), 90% probability that corrosion has occured xx-1
-450 -450 xx-2
-500 -500 xx-3
-550 -550
-600 -600
-650 -650
-700 -700
-750 -750
-800 -800
-850 -850
-900 -900
-950 -950
0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150 165 180 0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150 165 180
Age (day) Age (day)

Stainless hollow Stainless clad

 Epoxy Coated (120F,
0
Chloride)
-50
-100
-150
Above this line (-0.2v), 90% probability that no corrosion occurs
-200
-250 ex-4
ex-5
-300
ex-6
-350
-400 Under this line (-0.35V), 90% probability that corrosion has occured

-450
-500
-550
-600
-650
-700
-750
-800
-850
-900
-950
0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150 165 180
Age (day)

EX-5 and EX-6 ‘s coat broken after 30 days; EX-4 after 75 days
 Epoxy Coated (40 F,
0
-50
Chloride) ex-7
-100 ex-8
-150 ex-9
Above this line (-0.2v), 90% probability that no corrosion occurs
-200
-250
-300
-350
-400 Under this line (-0.35V), 90% probability that corrosion has occured
-450
-500
-550
-600
-650
-700
-750
-800
-850
-900
-950
0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150 165 180
Age (day)

EX-8 ‘s coat broken after 60 days; EX-9 intact

LPR Measurement Setup
 Linear Polarization
Resistance
E I

dEapp
dEapp

Ecorr
dI

t t dE
t0 t0
Rp 
Input Response dI f  0,t
Potentiostatic measurement

Stern-Geary relation icorr = B/Rp

 dowel bar result
Hotroom
Age: 130 days

SS4
80
SS5 Rp(K) I(A/cm^2)
SS6
60
rs4 SS4 0.714 0.975 low
rs5
40 rs6 SS5 1.333 0.522 low
20 SS6 1.000 0.696 low
0

-20
RS4 0.769 0.905 low
-40
RS5 0.103 6.75 mid
-60
RS6 0.042 16.5 high
-80

-0.10 -0.05 0.00 0.05 0.10

Current (mA)
 What is going on in
dowels

• Break the specimens

• Visual check
• Verifying the non-
destructive measurement
Regular steel (120
F,Chloride)
Regular steel (40 F,Chloride)
Epoxy Coated
Epoxy-coated Steel (1)
Epoxy Coated
Epoxy Coated
Epoxy Coated
Epoxy Coated
Epoxy Coated
 Visual Check Summary
• Chloride ions attack
• Stainless hollow and stainless clad dowels
NO visible corrosion products
• Regular steel
heavily corroded along the dowels
• Epoxy coated steel
localized corrosion mostly initiated on the top
• Chloride-free conditions
• Stainless steel and Epoxy-coated
showed NO visible corrosion products
• Regular steel
very lightly corroded in the cold condition
 Corrosion Resistance
Evaluation (1)
• Testing
Results from Non destructive monitoring and
destructive check match well
• Factors influencing corrosion
• Chloride (+H O) is the most dominant factor in
2
inducing corrosion
• Under high temperature, epoxy-coat easy to
break
• Under low temperature, the measured potential is
closer to Corrosion potential
Oxygen solubility
T = 5C or 41F 12.8 mg/L
T = 50C or 122F 6.3 mg/L
 Corrosion Resistance
Evaluation (2)
• dowel bars’ performance under
corrosion attack
• Stainless steel works best
• No difference between clad and
hollow bars
• Epoxy-coat tends to break under
Chloride attack
• Once coat is broken, the epoxy-
coated dowels are subjected
localized pitting corrosion
 Further study…...
• Impact on the mechanical
performance

• Interaction between the

mechanical behavior and
corrosion resistance
 Epoxy-coated steel !?
• A perfect coat acts as a physical barrier to
aggressive ions and an electrical insulator
• However, macroscopic and microscopic
defects are inevitable
pinholes,voids and mechanical scrapes scratches
• The localized corrosion is initiated at the
defects, and accumulated oxide will further lift
the coat.

• Impact on mechanical performance of dowels

• Interactions between mechanical performance
and corrosion reaction
Thank you!