Amstels for protection of construction steel in concrete.

A 120 year design life for concrete infrastructure has become increasingly common. Without early
preventative maintenance this design life target may be optimistic. The design service life of reinforced concrete structures often is not reached because of early deterioration and damage. The service life of some modern concrete structures is 20 to 30 years at most. Even good quality engineering concrete is made up of countless invisible interconnecting capillary pores. The concrete acts like a “hard sponge” which absorbs damaging liquids such as water and aggressive water-borne salts.

The strength of any concrete lessens as a result of static and dynamic loading, chloride ion ingress (from sea water) and the application of deicing salts. This leaves the concrete vulnerable to corrosion of the embedded steel. Concrete can also be damaged by sulphate attack, alkali-silica reaction, carbonation, temperature change, abrasion, biological attack, salt crystallization, efflorescence and freeze-thaw attack. Many of these processes are surface water driven and can be mitigated by early preventative maintenance with alkyl alkoxy silane impregnation.

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