Potentiodynamic resistance shifts in reinforcing steel placed in the concrete comprising supplementary cementitious material

The research paper outlines an experimental setup to examine the blended and reinforced concrete strength and corrosion rate. Specimens were primed with reinforced steel, unary with 100% Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), and quaternary consisting of the varying proportion of OPC (74%), Ground granulated blast-furnace slag (20%), Metakaolin (5%), and Colloidal nano-silica (1%). Therefore, cubes were fabricated and underwent a curing process lasting 7, 14, and 28 days. These specimens were then dispatched to evaluate their compressive strength, and a protocol established by an Indian standard was employed. In addition, a half-cell device was utilized to track the corrosion behaviour of the specimens. Outcomes of cured specimens proclaim the gain in compressive strength for the quaternary blended specimens and also show a reducing electrolyte potential of up to 3.82 × 10–7 A/m2 and a current electrolyte density of up to 2.42 × 10–7 A/m2 for the cathode to anode (C/A) ratio of 4/1 corrosion rate. The results indicate that a higher number of connected passive bars can lead to a faster anodic response rate and reduced potentiodynamic values. Comsol Multiphysics software was used to compute the concrete's potential and current density patterns using the finite-element technique. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.