Cathodic Prevention Distribution in Partially Submerged Reinforced Concrete

Abstract

Cathodic polarization to elevate the corrosion threshold (“cathodic prevention”) was implemented with commercial Zn bulk anodes on laboratory columns to simulate a reinforced concrete marine system. Both a detailed computational model and another simplified, less computational intensive model of the polarization distribution in the laboratory columns were formulated and yielded results in reasonable agreement with the experiment. The simplified model was applied to predict cathodic prevention throwing power on field scale structures for a variety of plausible conditions. The calculations suggest that with an immersed anode useful levels of cathodic prevention may be reasonably expected, even under conservative assumptions, in the area immediately above high tide where conditions are otherwise very severe.