“Romans built the Pantheon in Rome about 2000 years ago and it is still perfectly conserved. This demonstrates that concrete shows the durability of natural stones, provided that acid rains, sulphate-enriched waters, freeze-thaw cycling and reactive aggregates are absent. The case of reinforced concrete structures is much different, as experience shows daily, and far from being “eternal”; their durability is limited sometimes to tens of years, because of corrosion of steel reinforcements”
Extracted from: Corrosion Science and Engineering, P. Pedeferri
Rebars corrosion is the main cause of reinforced concrete structures degradation; it is due to concrete carbonation or to the penetration of chloride ions. To increase the durability of such structures, a high quality concrete is necessary. When long service life structures are designed, as well as for structures operating in highly aggressive environments, it is possible to resort to additional protection techniques.
PoliLaPP has worked on two important research streams:
- the definition of a corrosion inhibitor to prevent chloride induced corrosion
- the study of the effect of cementitious and polymeric coatings applied on the external concrete surface to avoid both carbonation induced corrosion and chloride induced corrosion
The mCD (Materiali Cementizi e Durabilità) research group currently works on research activities related to reinforced concrete.