Negative effect improvement of accelerated curing on chloride penetration resistance of ordinary concrete

Four mineral admixture concrete specimens werefabricated to study the negative effect improvements ofaccelerated curing on the chloride penetration resistance ofordinary concrete. After reaching different initial strengths, the specimens were placed in 40, 60, or 80 t water tanks foraccelerated curing. The Coulomb values of the specimens weemeasured with ASTM C1202 experiment at 28, 100, 200, ad300 d. Partial specimens were also selected for rapid chlorideion migration coefficient and mercury intrusion porosimetryexperiments. The experimental results show that theaccelerated curing for ordinary concrete linealy deterioratesthe chloride penetration resistance, whereas the incorporationof mineral admixtures improves the concrete microscopic pore-structures and negative effects. An upper temperature limit of60 t of the accelerated curing is suitable for obtainingsuperior chloride penetration resistance for the mineraladmixture concrete. Pre-curing at a normal temperature of 20t is beneficial for improving the negative effect, which isalso aieviated with increasing testing age as a result of thesuccessive hydration of binder materials in concrete.

Porosity,Pore Size Distribution and Chloride Permeability of Shotcrete Modified with Nano Particles at Early Age

Nano particles have been found to be effective in enhancing many properties of regular concretes. However, there is little information on the effect of nano particles on shotcrete. In fact, if similar positive effect of nano particles can also appear in shotcrete, they will greatly benefit the wide application of shotcrete in more and more repair and strengthening of structures in civil engineering, especially in corrosive environments. In this study, through experiments on 70 specimens, the effects of nano SiO2, CaCO3 and Al2O3 particles on the early-age porosity, pore size distribution, compressive strength and chloride permeability of shotcrete were investigated.Test results indicated that nano SiO2 particles significantly increased the compressive strength and chloride penetration resistance; nano Al2O3 and CaCO3 particles had slight enhancing effect on the compressive strength; nano CaCO3 particles were most effective in promoting the chloride penetration resistance of shotcrete. As a conclusion, nano SiO2 particles were recommended when both early age compressive strength and chloride penetration resistance were crucial, and nano CaCO3 particles were recommended when only chloride penetration resistance was concerned for their high cost-effectiveness.