The exposure often results in corrosion of the metallic dowel itself. As the dowel must be free moving to transfer the wheel loads of traffic from one slab to the next, corrosion product can lock the dowel in place defeating its purpose. This forces the load onto the concrete itself at the slab edge resulting in excessive stresses which crack and spoil the joint edges. The cracking and deterioration of the joint eventually results in the replacement of the entire slab or the replacement of the concrete near the joint area. The problem of deterioration of concrete pavement joints has resulted in the search for alternate solutions.
Stainless steel have very good resistance to chlorides.
This is a necessity since heavy use of road salts in the northern United States and Canada have resulted in pavement and joint deterioration. States such as Ohio, New Jersey and Pennsylvania during the l980s and early 1990s had limited experimentation with stainless or stainless clad dowel bars. However, no fully encompassing performance analysis of the performance of these joints was done relative to alternative materials. The recently study by the FHWA of Alternative Materials for Highway Construction demonstrated the outstanding corrosion resistance of stainless steel as compared to many other construction alternative materials such as copper, galvanized, nickel coated and epoxy coated products. Further, as this is a moving part the material used must have good abrasion resistance.