Application of Statistics to the Analysis

of Corrosion Data for Rebar

in Metakaolin Concrete

U. Raghu Babu(&) and B. Kondraivendhan

Applied Mechanics Department, Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute

of Technology, Surat 395007, Gujarat, India
ammaraghubabu@gmail.com, kondraivendhan78@gmail.com

Abstract. The present paper reports the effect of chloride, sulphate and the
combined chloride-sulphate solutions on the corrosion behaviour of rebar
embedded in concretes made with Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and
Metakaolin (MK). The corrosion test data collected on the reinforced slab
specimens made with mix water contaminated with 5% sodium chloride, 2%
magnesium sulphate and the combination of both salts. The corrosion perfor-
mance was monitored for every 30 days throughout 180 days, in terms of
corrosion rate values. The analysis of the obtained data was carried out as per
the specifications given by ASTM G16-13. The analysis of the corrosion data
includes the descriptive statistics of the Normal, Weibull lognormal, and
Smallest Extreme Value probability distribution functions and the test of fit
significance by the Anderson-Darling (AD) goodness of fit statistics. In addition,
the analysis of variance was also carried out to determine the influence of each
factor on the corrosion data. This detailed analysis of the test data is useful to
carry out the further investigation on corrosivity of reinforcement bar exposed to
aggressive environments or marine environment. The statistical analysis from
the present dataset is helpful for further research on the MK and the effect of
concomitant presence of chlorides and sulphates on the corrosivity of rebar
embedded in concrete. In addition to this Analysis of Variance is also carried out
on the obtained corrosion data to assess the effect of cementitious material type
and salt type on corrosion data.

Keywords: Corrosion
Metakaolin
Probability distribution
Chloride

Sulphate

1 Introduction

Corrosion of the rebar embedded in concrete and deterioration of concrete due to

sulphates are the most common causes of the failures of concrete structures. Corrosion
due to chlorides and carbonation are not only the deterioration mechanisms of concrete,
some other aggressive salts like sulphates, carbonates, high temperature and humidity
variations contribute to the early initiation and propagation of reinforced steel corrosion
[1]. However, It would be anticipated that the existence of sulphate ions would affect

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

S. C. Satapathy et al. (Eds.): ICETE 2019, LAIS 2, pp. 162–169, 2020.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24314-2_22
 Application of Statistics to the Analysis of Corrosion Data 163

the mineralogical composition and the characteristics of corrosion resistance of rebar in

concrete [2].
Sulphate salts are also present in ground water and sea water in addition to chloride
salts. The environmental conditions in the coastal areas contribute to a reduction in the
durability of the structures mainly due to the contaminated soil and ground water with
the chloride and sulphate ions. In the marine environments and groundwater prevailing
in the Arabian Gulf countries [3], Northwest of China [4, 5] and elsewhere, chloride
and sulphate ions existed concomitantly. Khan and Tayyib [6] demonstrated that sul-
phate ions are corrosive, but not much severe than chloride ions. The reaction of
sulphates with Ca(OH)2 reduces the pH of concrete pore solution and results the
sulphate induced corrosion of rebar. Holden et al. [7] have shown, the concomitant
presence of sulphates with chloride ions, decreases the chloride binding capacity due to
reaction with the aluminates, and increases the corrosion of steel in concrete. The
concentration of sulphates present in concrete also influences the binding of chlorides.
Some other research work also evident that the chloride binding capacity of cement
hydrates decrease with the sulphate ions [4, 11]. This was ascribed to the reaction of
C3A with sulphates to produce ettringite, which inhibits the formation of Friedel’s salt
(FS). Brown and Badger [8], indicated that FS can convert to ettringite in Na2SO4
solution and releases the bound chlorides. Furthermore, due to the competition between
the sulphate and chloride ions to adsorb on the C–S–H phase, the physically bound
chlorides may release. Thus, the presence of sulphates is considered as a potential
factor to release of bound chlorides in concrete.
Keeping this in view, the present study is designed to bring the understanding of the
impact of the sulphates on the chloride induced corrosion of rebar in concrete. This was
done by analysing the corrosion performance of rebar in both normal and blended
concrete specimens contaminated with chlorides, sulphates and combination of both
the salts. In addition, the experimental results were analysed with Analysis of Variance
to investigate the influence of salt type and cement type on corrosion data.

2 Experimental
2.1 Materials Used and Specimen Preparation
The Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) 53 grade conforming to IS:12269-2013 [9] was
used in preparing normal cement concrete specimens. The blended concrete specimens
were made with the replacement of cement with Metakaolin (MK) by 10% weight of
OPC cement. The oxide composition of the cement and MK used in current study were
shown in Table 1. The diameter of the steel reinforcing bar was 10 mm. The Coarse
aggregate of size 20 mm and 10 mm maximum size of aggregate (MSA) respectively,
were used in the ratio of 1.5:1. The specific gravity and water absorption of coarse
aggregate were 2.8, and 2.25% respectively, and the corresponding values for fine
aggregate were 2.7, and 0.75%. Locally available river sand is confirming to grading
zone II as per IS:383:1970 (Reaffirmed 2002) [10] was used as fine aggregate. Tap
water from the laboratory was used for the preparation of concrete mixtures with water
to cementitious material (w/cm) ratio 0.51. Analytical reagent grade chemicals were
164 U. Raghu Babu and B. Kondraivendhan

added to the concretes. Magnesium sulphate as the source of sulphate ions and sodium
chloride as the source of chlorides were added in mix water. The composition of
admixed solution is as detailed below:
Solution 1: 5% NaCl
Solution 2: 5% NaCl + 2% MgSO4
Solution 3: 2% MgSO4.

Table 1. Chemical composition of cementitious materials.

Chemical compound Al2O3 Fe2O3 SiO2 MgO TiO2 CaO SO3 Na2O LOI
(%)
OPC 5.32 4.23 20.65 1.13 – 64.12 2.16 – 2.39
MK 40– 1.3 52– 1.0 0.5 1.0 – –* 1.5
42 (Max) 54 (Max)
* Na2O K2O: 0.5–2.5%

Reinforced concrete slab specimens with size 320 mm  320 mm  52 mm were

prepared with a centrally embedded Thermo Mechanically Treated (TMT) steel of
diameter 10 mm. The steel specimens were cleaned and prepared as per the recom-
mendations of ASTM G109-99a. The reinforcing steel was prepared such that the
central portion of length 250 mm remains bare to expose to corrosive environment as
shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Steel specimen for corrosion moni- Fig. 2. Analysed results of I data of NaCl
corr
toring slab specimen admixed concrete
 Application of Statistics to the Analysis of Corrosion Data 165

2.2 Corrosion Monitoring

The advanced corrosion monitoring (ACM, Gill AC guard serial no. 1824-sequencer)
instrument was used to monitor the corrosion of rebar in slab specimens. Linear
Polarization Resistance (LPR) sweep technique was adopted to evaluate the corrosion
current density (Icorr) of the concrete slab specimens. This LPR sweep test was con-
ducted with IR compensation, using the guard ring arrangement. The slab specimens
were polarized to ±20 mV with offset to the rest potential at a sweep rate of 0.1 mV/s.

Fig. 3. Analysed results of Icorr data of Fig. 4. Analysed results of Icorr data of concrete
MgSO4 admixed concrete with NaCl plus MgSO4

3 Results of Statistical Fitting Analyses of Corrosion Data

The Normal, Lognormal, Weibull and Smallest Extreme Value probability distributions
(pdf’s) were adopted for determining the descriptive statistics for the scatter of mea-
sured corrosion data as per ASTM G16-13 [11] and for detailing the performance of
metakaolin in mitigation of corrosion of rebar. According to ASTM G16-13 [11],
statistical evaluation is necessary in the analysis of the results.
Results of statistical analyses of test-data measurements from each OPC and MK
blended concrete specimen contaminated with chlorides, sulphates and combination of
both were shown in Figs. 2, 3 and 4. In order to choose the best fitting distribution, the
results of Anderson-Darling (AD) goodness-of-fit test of the scattering of corrosion test
data were also reported in Table 2. This table consists the AD statistic, AD p-value and
the validation decision of the corresponding distribution. In Table 2 decision of “A”
indicated that the modelled dataset significantly drawn from the fitting distribution,
while the decision of “B” suggests that the modelled data not significantly drawn from
the corresponding distribution.
From the Table 2. It is noted that all the Icorr data scattered like Weibull. It is also
observed that, except the corrosion data of MK contaminated with combined solution
all the set scattered like Lognormal probability distribution. As the Weibull and
166 U. Raghu Babu and B. Kondraivendhan

Lognormal distribution are provide reasonable fit to the data in most of the datasets, the
best distribution can choose by comparing the AD statistics. Generally, the Smaller AD
values indicate that the distribution fits the data better. The overall performance of OPC
and MK concrete specimens was evaluated from the use of these selected distributions
as shown in Fig. 5. These identifications of descriptive statistics for detailing the
corrosion data highlights the importance of the use of goodness-of-fit test for deter-
mining the probabilistic distribution fitting followed by the corrosion data. While
observing the influence of chlorides and sulphates on corrosion of rebar from the
Fig. 5, it is observed that the corrosion due to sulphate ions alone is very less as
compared to chlorides. As well as it is also observed that the attendance of sulphates
with chlorides enhances the chloride induced corrosion. The replacement of cement
with 10% of MK enhanced the corrosion resistance of rebar in concretes contaminated
with chlorides, sulphates and combination of both the salts.

Table 2. The results of Anderson-Darling goodness-of-fit data

Statistical OPC MK
parameters NaCl MgSO4 NaCl plus NaCl MgSO4 NaCl plus
MgSO4 MgSO4
Normal AD 1.066 0.476 0.984 0.656 0.905 0.608
P-Value 0.005 0.177 0.008 0.06 0.013 0.078
Decision B A B A B A
Weibull AD 0.561 0.248 0.409 0.151 0.467 0.818
P-Value 0.136 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.229 0.26
Decision A A A A A A
Lognormal AD 0.399 0.446 0.314 0.193 0.682 0.734
P-Value 0.286 0.213 0.485 0.856 0.051 0.035
Decision A A A A A B
Smallest extreme AD 1.275 0.825 1.125 0.958 1.34 0.593
value P-Value 0.01 0.025 0.01 0.012 0.01 0.104
Decision B B B B B A

Fig. 5. The overall performance of OPC and MK concrete contaminated with different salts
 Application of Statistics to the Analysis of Corrosion Data 167

3.1 Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)

Tables 3 and 4 reports the ANOVA results of Icorr data of OPC and MK blended
concrete specimens contaminated with NaCl, MgSO4 and NaCl plus MgSO4 respec-
tively. For this three replicate of Icorr values at two levels of cementitious material type
i.e., OPC, MK are prepared in tabular form to calculate the sum of the squares (SS) for
factor and residual error. After that, their corresponding SS values were divided by
associated degree of freedom (DF) to calculate the mean squares (MS). Then the effect
of individual factors is assessed by hypothesis test of equality of variances. In analysis
of variance the most important statistics is the P-value, which used to determine
whether the level of means are significantly different from each other about the
hypothesis with 95% confident level (a = 0.05) The hypothesis for the present study is
given below [12]:

Table 3. Results of ANOVA for Icorr values of NaCl contaminated concrete

Source DF SS MS F-Value P-Value
Cementitious material 1 3.080 3.0798 7.29 0.015
Error 17 7.181 0.4224
Total 18 10.261

Table 4. Results of ANOVA for Icorr values of MgSO4 contaminated concrete

Source DF SS MS F-Value P-Value
Cementitious material 1 0.002009 0.002009 1.87 0.190
Error 16 0.017183 0.001074
Total 7 0.019193

Table 5. Results of ANOVA for Icorr values of NaCl plus MgSO4 contaminated concrete
Source DF SS MS F-Value P-Value
Cementitious material 1 4.287 4.287 6.38 0.043
Error 17 21.536 1.267
Total 18 25.823

Table 6. Results of ANOVA for Icorr values of OPC concrete specimens

Source DF SS MS F-Value P-Value
Salt type 2 7.213 3.606 3.24 0.05
Error 25 27.836 1.113
Total 27 35.049
168 U. Raghu Babu and B. Kondraivendhan

Table 7. Results of ANOVA for Icorr values of MK concrete specimens

Source DF SS MS F-Value P-Value
Salt type 2 0.1718 0.08591 2.51 0.1
Error 27 0.9257 0.03429
Total 29 1.0975

P value  0.05: The level means are significantly different from each other
P value > 0.05: The level means are not significantly different.
From Tables 3, 4 and 5, it is observed that the cementitious material type is statistically
significant with the p value 0.015 for NaCl and 0.043 for NaCl plus MgSO4 con-
tamination with 95% confident level. The cementitious material factor in other admixed
salts namely MgSO4, is not significantly related to Icorr value. It means that the type of
cementitious material has the strongest effect on Icorr values of rebar in NaCl and NaCl
plus MgSO4 admixed concrete. While observing the impact of salt type on corrosion
data of rebar embedded in OPC concretes, it is observed that for Icorr values of rebar,
the P-value indicated that salt type is significant at the 0.05 a-level, but not significant
for MK concrete. It means that there are significant differences in Icorr value of OPC
specimens between salt types (Tables 6 and 7).

4 Conclusions

From the presented statistical analysis of the test data the following conclusions were
drawn:
1. Corrosion current density values in the study followed Weibull probability distri-
bution function for OPC and MK concretes contaminated with different salts.
2. The rebar in MK blended concrete has shown less corrosion current density values
as compared to OPC concrete.
3. The corrosion of rebar in concrete due to sulphates alone is very less as compared to
chlorides and chlorides plus sulphates.
4. The presence of MgSO4 enhances the chloride-induced corrosion of rebar in both
normal, and MK blended concretes.
5. ANOVA results indicated that there is a significant difference in corrosion perfor-
mance between OPC and MK concretes contaminated with NaCl and NaCl plus
MgSO4.
6. ANOVA results also reported that the type of salt affect the corrosion performance
of rebar in OPC concrete.
 Application of Statistics to the Analysis of Corrosion Data 169

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