Corrosion of reinforcing steel leading to structural deterioration and failure of reinforced concrete structures is a serious problem for port and highway agencies, and facility owners. Galvanic anodes have been used to extend the service lives of concrete structures since late 1990s. Embedded Zinc sacrificial anodes have been included in patch repairs of steel reinforced concrete structural elements suffering from corrosion since the mid-nineties. The anodes installed in a UK bridge in 1999 have been monitored, and 10-year data monitored data will be discussed. Galvanic anodes have been used widely in patch repair since then. Recognizing the inadequate monitoring of impressed current cathodic protection that will make it in-effective, distributed galvanic anodes were developed in early 2000s to address the global corrosion issues in concrete structures. Many departments of Transportation (DOTs) and Ministries of Transportation tried and monitored the anodes initially for a few years and considered the trials successes, and have widely used galvanic anodes in bridge decks, abutments, pile jackets and marine structures since then. This paper introduces different levels of corrosion protection offered by galvanic anodes and the various galvanic anode systems used in concrete structures. Various applications of the galvanic systems to extended service lives of concrete structures are presented.

• Haixue Liao(Vector Corrosion Technologies Ltd)