Effect of the sample form on the corrosion behavior of steels for concrete in 3% NaCl medium

Abstract

Corrosion of steel constitutes a major preoccupation in the field of civil engineering and the building sector. In this paper, we investigated the electrochemical behavior of two steel specimens with different forms (latched steel and smooth steel) in a 3 wt.% NaCl solution. For this purpose, we studied the steel samples by linear polarization, potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The surface morphologies of the substrates were examined by scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy diffraction spectroscopy (SEM/EDS). Results of linear polarization, Tafel polarization curves and EIS show that latched steel (LS) is more susceptible to corrosion than smooth steel (SS) in saline solution. Gravimetric and SEM/EDS analysis after 10 days of immersion confirmed the results obtained by electrochemical methods. All of our results are in agreement and demonstrate that the sample form plays a key role in corrosion resistance.