Electrochemical Study of Clean and Pre-Corroded Reinforcements Embedded in Mortar Samples with Variable Amounts of Chloride Ions.

The present study investigates the possibility of re-surfacing previously corroded reinforcements and the suitability of the two electrochemical techniques that are widely used to determine the state of corrosion of steel (the corrosion potential E and the corrosion rate i). In order to test this, 32 pre-corroded B500SD reinforcing steel bars have been used for one year, where half of the bars have been cleaned to eliminate corrosion products. The other half have been maintained with the generated corrosion products.

Mind the Gap: Professionalization is the Key to Strengthening Safety and Leadership in the Construction Sector.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the reality of risk prevention in construction sector companies in Spain, from the perspective of training, management, and risk prevention, as well as the amount of resources that are allocated to those budget headings. An in-depth comparative review has been conducted, using the data obtained from two focus groups that were expressly created for the study, in conjunction with the Second European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emergent Risks (ESENER-2) and its Spanish counterpart (ESENER-2 Spain). The focus groups were formed with agents and entrepreneurs involved in the construction sector, from both the public and the private sector, in order to provide greater impartiality to the resulting data.

Influence of the Loading Speed on the Ductility Properties of Corroded Reinforcing Bars in Concrete.

In this work 144 reinforcing bars of high-ductility steel named B500SD were subjected to an accelerated corrosion treatment and then tested under tension at different loading speeds in order to assess the effect of corrosion on the ductility properties of the rebars. Results showed that the bars with a corrosion level as low as the one reducing the steel mass by 1% gave rise to a significant degradation on the ductility properties when a high loading speed was applied in tensile tests. In that case, the equivalent steel concept is useful to reduce the destabilising effect.