Since the Florida Keys incident in 1986, effectiveness of epoxy coated reinforcing steel (ECR) has been
questioned among corrosion professionals and transportation officials. One of the key controversies is
whether ECR can be effective corrosion resistant under the disbonded coating condition. A school of
experts claim that as soon as the epoxy coating disbonds, the ECR no longer provides adequate
corrosion protection. According to others, however, excellent field performance records for nearly 30
years and several significant laboratory studies proved that, despite universally accepted disbondment
phenomenon, ECR is still the best and economic corrosion protection system for the northern bridge
decks and its corrosion resistance expects to improve because newer decks contain ECRs in both top and
bottom mats.