Corrosion performance of coated steel bars in cracked and uncracked reinforced concrete beams
type: CreativeWork
description: Textured epoxy-coated reinforcing bar (TEC) is a material which has gained interest from several Departments of Transportation (DOTs) for its ability to provide enhanced bonding to concrete thereby reducing cracking within transportation bridge deck systems. It aims to improve upon conventional smooth epoxy-coated reinforcing bar (ECR) by providing a multi-layered thicker and texturized coating. Where the texturized surface aims to improve the bond with the concrete, the thicker coating as compared to ECR aims to improve abrasion resistance, reducing the likelihood of impact-caused coating defects that could expose the underlying carbon steel that would lead to corrosion in road-salt chloride ion environments. Despite several studies investigating the mechanical performance of TEC as compared to ECR, no study has explored the long-term corrosion resistance performance of this new type of coating. This research aims to evaluate TEC’s long-term corrosion performance by subjecting reinforced concrete TEC specimens to service-level displacement loading and chloride ion exposure conditions that reflect realistic bridge deck conditions. As such, macrocell specimen subsets of uncoated, coated with holidays (intentional defects), ECR, and TEC reinforcing bar are curated and subjected to cycling chloride ponding. Additional ECR and TEC macrocell specimens are loaded in service-level displacement and then subjected to cyclic chloride ponding. Standardized corrosion benchmark tests such as half-cell potential (HCP) and macrocell current are employed to evaluate the performance of TEC relative to uncoated and coated reinforcing bar control samples. In addition, several experimental non-destructive testing (NDT) methods such as Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity (UPV), and Impact Echo (IE) are employed to assess the long term corrosion condition. Overall, it was observed that through 11 months of cyclic chloride ion exposure that the TEC bar specimens, bot…
abstract: Textured epoxy-coated reinforcing bar (TEC) is a material which has gained interest from several Departments of Transportation (DOTs) for its ability to provide enhanced bonding to concrete thereby reducing cracking within transportation bridge deck systems. It aims to improve upon conventional smooth epoxy-coated reinforcing bar (ECR) by providing a multi-layered thicker and texturized coating. Where the texturized surface aims to improve the bond with the concrete, the thicker coating as compared to ECR aims to improve abrasion resistance, reducing the likelihood of impact-caused coating defects that could expose the underlying carbon steel that would lead to corrosion in road-salt chloride ion environments. Despite several studies investigating the mechanical performance of TEC as compared to ECR, no study has explored the long-term corrosion resistance performance of this new type of coating. This research aims to evaluate TEC’s long-term corrosion performance by subjecting reinforced concrete TEC specimens to service-level displacement loading and chloride ion exposure conditions that reflect realistic bridge deck conditions. As such, macrocell specimen subsets of uncoated, coated with holidays (intentional defects), ECR, and TEC reinforcing bar are curated and subjected to cycling chloride ponding. Additional ECR and TEC macrocell specimens are loaded in service-level displacement and then subjected to cyclic chloride ponding. Standardized corrosion benchmark tests such as half-cell potential (HCP) and macrocell current are employed to evaluate the performance of TEC relative to uncoated and coated reinforcing bar control samples. In addition, several experimental non-destructive testing (NDT) methods such as Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity (UPV), and Impact Echo (IE) are employed to assess the long term corrosion condition. Overall, it was observed that through 11 months of cyclic chloride ion exposure that the TEC bar specimens, bot…
author: Danner, Kevin Matthew
language: en
keywords: Textured Epoxy Coated Rebar, TEC, Epoxy coated rebar, corrosion, steel reinforcing bar, Non-Destructive Testing, NDT, Ground Penetrating Radar, GPR, ASTM G-109, macrocell corrosion, Half-Cell Potential, Impact Echo, Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity, corrosion detection, holidays, bridge deck corrosion
date published: 2025-12
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:25:07Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132695