Impact of corrosion on mechanical properties of steel embedded in 27-year-old corroded reinforced concrete beams

This paper deals with the impact of corrosion on the mechanical properties of steel in reinforced concrete. Steel bars were extracted from a 27-year-old corroded reinforced concrete beam that had been exposed to a chloride environment. Bars with different degrees of corrosion and with different corrosion pit depths were tested in tension. A comparison was made between nominal and true stress for corroded and control steel specimens. It was noted that the degree of corrosion strongly affected the mechanical properties of the steel, particularly the ultimate stress and strain. Interestingly, the true yield strength of all the corroded steel bars remained almost constant while their true ultimate strength was considerably increased. A reduction of the ultimate elongation appeared to be the major effect of corrosion and affected the compliance with standards.