Patent attributes
Cathodic protection of a structure including a steel member at least partly buried in a covering layer, such as steel rebar in a concrete structure, is provided by embedding sacrificial anodes into the concrete layer at spaced positions over the layer and connecting the anodes to the rebar. The anode body is formed, by pressing together finely divided powder, flakes or fibers of a sacrificial anode material such as zinc to define a porous body having pores therein. The sacrificial anode material of the anode member is directly in contact with the covering material by being buried or inserted as a tight fit into a drilled hole so that any expansion forces therefrom would be applied to the concrete with the potential of causing cracking. The pores are arranged however such that corrosion products from corrosion of the anode body are received into the pores sufficiently to prevent expansion of the anode body to an extent which would cause cracking of the covering material.
