Evaluation of the adhesion of steel bars to air-entrained concrete

The aim of this work is to study the extent to which the addition of an air-entraining agent to concrete can influence adhesion to steel, so that this relationship can be established as one of the parameters when defining or sizing the reinforced concrete to be used. The adherence between steel and concrete is fundamental to the existence of reinforced concrete structures, since the two materials act together to absorb the stresses. The phenomenon of adhesion is considered complex in terms of the various factors that influence it. It is important to define the force required to release/break the steel bar from the reinforced concrete block. To this end, a concrete mix was cast in reinforced specimens without and with an air admixture and these were subjected to tensile and compressive tests. It is expected that in the tensile test, a greater amount of force was required to pull the steel bar out of the specimen without the air-entraining agent. And the tensile force required by the machine with the air-incorporated specimen was much lower than the conventional one, concluding that there is an interference in the adherence of the material.