Surface corrosion of steel fibre reinforced concrete

Corrosion of SFRC (Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete) in an adverse environment, less harmful as compared to corrosion of steel reinforced concrete, is often considered to be of minor importance, however it exists. It can affect the fibres bridging the cracks and then decrease the strength of the concerned structures. As well, it results in the appearance of corrosion spots at exposed surfaces. Then the damaging effect is no longer expressed in terms of resistance, it is only aesthetic. It is especially undesirable in prefabricated structures.

The work developed in this paper focuses on this second point: surface corrosion. Fibre reinforced concrete prisms have been subjected to cycles of salt fog (1 week) and drying (1 week). The results obtained demonstrate that with high W/C ratio (0.78), all the fibres which are embedded in concrete less than 1 mm are susceptible to give corrosion spots at the surface. When W/C is reduced to about 0.5, the minimum necessary cover to prevent surface corrosion drops to 1/10 mm or 2/10 mm and further decrease of W/C does not bring extra significant benefit. This result is in agreement with the analysis, by mercury intrusion, of the skin concrete porosity. It confirms a sharp change in the pore diameters when W/C is decreased from 0.78 to 0.48 and a quasi stability when it is varied from 0.48 to 0.36.