ABSTRACT
Not surprisingly, the multiplicity of possible test setups leads to poor comparability of the results. This has to be kept in mind when evaluating reported critical chloride contents.
3 LITERATURE EVALUATION
In the present article, nearly 40 references reporting critical chloride contents from laboratory or field studies have been evaluated. For chloride threshold values reported as total chloride by weight of binder, a large scatter was found with results from 0.02 to 3.08% chloride by weight of cement (over two orders of magnitude). Details about the experimental procedures were also evaluated but no systematic trends with regard to characteristics such as cement type, rebar type (smooth, ribbed) or chloride introduction method were identified from the totality of the data. Obviously, the effect of a single parameter on the critical chloride content is not pronounced enough to be globally apparent. The only factor that appears to have an overall effect is the electrochemical potential of the steel: In many studies, this was higher than −200 mV vs. SCE; only in two references steel potentials below −200 mV vs. SCE were reported. The corresponding critical chloride contents are on a clearly higher level than in the majority of the other publications.
