Stainless steels offer almost maintenance-free solution to the problem of long-term durability of concrete structures and can be used within existing design codes and practice in two ways. The simplest but more expansive option would be to use 100% stainless rebar to replace existing carbon steel rebar. This would eliminate corrosion and enable a design life in excess of 120 years. The total cost can be competitive when life cycle costing is taken into account. To reduce the cost, stainless steel rebar can be used intelligently in areas of a structure such as bridge joints, splash zones, support structures and column heads where carbon steel rebars are judged to be at high risk of corrosion. If stainless rebars are used in vunerable areas where cracking occurs and water enters, there will be no significant corrosion and the structure will remain sound. It has been estimated that the stainless steel content on prestigious structures would be as little as 7~20%. The same concept can be used in other structures such as general building where peripheral or external walls could be constructed from stainless steel rebar linking in to carbon steel rebar for the internal structures where corrosion is not a problem.

6.6 Applications