Workability of Ribbed Bar with Nano-Ceramic Coating

A nano-ceramic composite is proposed to coat steel rebar used in reinforced concrete with the purpose of protecting it from corroding. This is a new material in the civil engineering field. For this reason several tests have been performed over coated steel rebar with the nano-ceramic composite in order to know its viability and its properties. A bending test showed that the coating is stiff, and therefore not flexible enough to bend it as a stirrup. For this reason if a bended rebar were needed, it should be bent before coating it. While the pull-out test concluded, there is no significant loss of bond strength due to the contact of the coating with the concrete. The chemical test indicated that the coating cannot bear strong alkali and acid environments, but resisted without problems under saline environments with neutral pH. Finally a cathodic disbondment test and a corrosion test were performed. These tests showed problems with the coating process because the behavior of during the execution of the test differed from the expected.