Cathodic Prevention/Protection in Durability Design of Reinforced Concrete Structures
Recent technical paper published in Concrete In Australia.
The increasing cost of large civil infrastructure projects in terms both initial construction costs and ongoing maintenance costs has lead to a demand in many instances for 100 year or greater design life. This demand challenges current industry durability practices in terms of materials selection, design methodology, construction and standards. Particularly in aggressive marine environments, chloride induced reinforcement corrosion is likely to be a long term concern. In this situation, extended design lifetimes are difficult to guarantee with traditional methods, quality control and good design alone. In some instances it is not possible to provide the necessary concrete cover or mix design needed for durability. Structure owners are now frequently requesting structures to be either designed with cathodic prevention, or designed with provision for a cathodic protection system. These methods provide additional reinforcement protection and assist to vastly extend the service life of these structures. The paper will discuss durability issues relevant to cathodic prevention and cathodic protection methods, including where each method can be applied, relevant standards, construction and design issues and ongoing maintenance requirements. The recent construction of an innovative cathodic prevention system to a new landmark heavy rail bridge will be used as a case study. The bridge incorporated pre-tensioned pre-cast …
To view this technical paper in full please log onto the ACRA website and click on “Info Resources” and can be downloaded in the “Technical Papers” section. Filename is Solomon.pdf
