Relating Corrosion of Mechanically Stabilized Earth Reinforcements with Fluid Conductivity of Backfill Soils
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 32, Issue 11
Abstract
The service life of mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls depends on the rate of corrosion of the metallic reinforcements used in their construction. A methodology was designed to monitor and estimate the corrosion rate of galvanized steel in MSE walls with a conductivity sensor coupled with laboratory electrochemical techniques. The fluid conductivity of six coarse-grained backfill soils undergoing either wet-dry cycles or under submerged conditions were measured regularly for up to . The corrosion rates of the galvanized steel were determined indirectly by measuring the conductivities of the leachates from the six backfills. The conductivity of the leach-liquor appears promising to monitor the corrosion rate even though the predicted corroded thickness was less than the actual corroded thickness measured with a scanning electron microscope.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data (Figs. 2–11), models (Figs. 9–10), or code (Fig. 5) that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors sincerely appreciate Mr. Marcus Galvan of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) for his outstanding support and guidance on this project. We are also grateful to Sergio Rocha, Jose Garibay, and Anita Thapalia who worked very hard on the study. We also are extremely grateful for the helpful comments by Dr. Ken Fishman during the final stages of the study.
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Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 32 • Issue 11 • November 2020
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 19, 2019
Accepted: May 12, 2020
Published online: Aug 26, 2020
Published in print: Nov 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Jan 26, 2021
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