The U.S. Federal Highway Administration has released a report that examines the performance of systems combining epoxy-coated reinforcement with another corrosion-protection system compared to conventional uncoated reinforcement and conventional epoxy-coated reinforcement.
The systems evaluated included bars that were pretreated with zinc chromate to improve the adhesion between the epoxy and the reinforcing steel, two epoxies with improved adhesion to the reinforcing steel, one inorganic corrosion inhibitor (calcium nitrite), two organic corrosion inhibitors, an epoxy-coated bar with a primer containing micro-encapsulated calcium nitrite, three epoxy-coated bars with improved adhesion combined with the corrosion inhibitor calcium nitrite, and multiple-coated (MC) bars with an initial 50- m (2-mil) coating of 98 percent zinc and 2 percent aluminum followed by a conventional epoxy coating.