Gerissener Stahlbeton: Wie korrosionsgefährdet ist die Bewehrung?

The formation of cracks within the tension zone of the concrete is part of the design principle of reinforced concrete structures. The width of these cracks can be limited by means of crack limiting reinforcement. Already by the end of the fifties first examinations have been carried out to determine the influence of cracks and their width on the corrosion risk. Compared to uncracked concrete CO₂ and chlorides as corrosion promoting substances are able to move faster towards the reinforcement within a crack, leading to an earlier depassivation of the reinforcement within the cracks. Before Schießt published his results, from experiments and literature research, it had been assumed that the corrosion rate of reinforcement within cracks increases with increasing crack width. Hence a differentiated maximum crack width linked to exposure classes had to be complied according to the DIN 1045 until the version of 1988. For the first time the DIN 1045 version 1988 did not enclose this differentiation, for durability reasons a maximum crack width of 0.25 mm has been fixed for reinforced concrete. In the version of 2001 the calculated crack width has been raised from 0.25 mm to 0.30 mm. Therewith the findings of Schießt (published in book no. 370 by the Deutscher Ausschuss für Stahlbeton) have been implemented by now. The main contributing factors influencing the corrosion rate of cracked concrete are the concrete quality and the concrete cover and not the crack width, whereas horizontal structural parts exposed to chlorides have to protected generally by additional measures.