• Dense impermeable concrete
• Adequate reinforcement cover
• Rich cement factor
• Salt-free aggregates
• Minimum chloride content in mixing water
• Proper type of cement mix
• Consolidation of cement around steel reinforcement
•  Adequate curing (complete hydration)
• Coating applied to concrete surface and/or steel
• Allow no galvanic coupling by using other metals (i.e. copper & aluminum) in the reinforcement.

Corrosion Protection Methods

The most common and cost effective advanced corrosion protection method:

• reinforcement coatings,
• migrating corrosion inhibitors (MCI), and
• cathodic protection.

Some coatings that when applied to the steel before placed in the concrete that have shown some success in reducing the corrosion rate are epoxy coated rebar and hot dip galvanizing rebar.

MCI is also used with a get deal of success when using low density concrete due to an easier path for the inward diffusion of the MCI, resulting in faster corrosion retardation. MCI offers protection for the steel rebar by using the inhibitors to suppress (raise pH) the chloride ions.

Cathodic Protection is generally applied by using zinc as an anode in a galvanic couple with the steel causing all the corrosion to work only on the zinc. This corrosion protection method is the most common, simple, and reliable for our concrete reinforcement corrosion. The left figure shows the simple mechanics of this method. The right figure given is an example of how we can apply this method from outside multiple concrete structures (i.e. vie attached wire).

We can clearly state by weighing the cost and design of cathodic (zinc) corrosion protection is one of the most feasible and reliable of all the tested corrosion protection methods.

Some topics from- Andrew Cantrell, University of Washington, Material Science Engineering Department Undergraduate