Minimizing the negative impacts of rebar stored in the Persian Gulf on reinforced concrete corrosion

•Relationship between rebar surface conditions before use in concrete and corrosion of steel in reinforced concrete.•Relationship between concrete quality and corrosion of pre-rusted rebar in reinforced concrete.•The dominant indicator in determining the corrosion rate of pre-rusted steel in reinforced concrete. The study aims to ascertain the impact of improving concrete quality on decreasing the unfavorable impact of pre-rusted rebar on steel corrosion in reinforced concrete. Steel corrosion was assessed using half-cell potential and corrosion rate intensity tests, and concrete quality was assessed using electrical resistance measure and rapid chloride permeability test (RCPT). The efficiency of each element in influencing the steel corrosion in reinforced concrete was determined by the factors of the impact of rebar surface conditions and concrete quality on corrosion. The results showed that when using normal rebar, the effect of concrete quality index and rebar surface conditions on corrosion was 40.11% and 0.24%, and when using rebar with a corrosion index (CI)=11 was 1.25 % and 55.57%, respectively. Therefore, by increasing the pre-rusted rebar surface, the effect of concrete quality on corrosion reduces, and the effect of rebar surface conditions increases. In this study, until CI=7, the influence of the concrete quality index was more significant on corrosion than rebar surface conditions, followed by a reverse trend. Therefore, until CI=7, the concrete quality was the dominant factor in determining the corrosion rate intensity. By increasing the corrosion index, the steel corrosion rate intensity in reinforced concrete depends on the rebar surface conditions, and by increasing the concrete quality, these adverse effects cannot be reduced to a large extent.