Cathodic polarization behavior of the structural steel wires under different prestressing conditions

Cold-drawn structural steel wires prestressed to different levels and cathodically polarized at various potentials were investigated using electrochemical techniques and slow strain rate tests. The potentiodynamic polarization revealed that prestressing enhances the active anodic dissolution of the structural steel wires. The corrosion current density and corrosion potential were observed to vary with prestressing levels applied to the structural steel wire specimens. The structural steel wire prestressed to 80% of its original tensile strength and cathodically polarized at −1500 mV exhibited the highest current densities and lowest corrosion potentials after potentiodynamic polarization, which indicate that the above prestressing and cathodic polarization conditions lower the corrosion resistance of the material. Moreover, the tensile results show that the structural steel wire prestressed to higher levels and cathodically polarized at lower potentials was more susceptible to degradation of the tensile properties. The structural steel wire prestressed to 80% level and cathodically polarized at a potential of −1500 mV exhibits the lowest UTS and ductility. The tensile fracture surfaces of the steel wires prestressed and cathodically polarized under above conditions exhibit mostly quasi-cleavage brittle fracture character. Furthermore, the brittle regions were observed to increase with increasing the prestressing levels and decreasing the cathodic polarization potentials applied to the structural steel wires.