Durability of Concrete under Multi-damage Action

Several different experiments,including freezing-thawing,freezing-thawing+drying-wetting,and drying-wetting,in salt solution and in water respectively,were designed to determine the durability of concrete.The durability damage features of concrete in the above experiments were studied.It is demonstrated that the damage extent of concrete under freezing-thawing and freezing-thawing+drying-wetting in salt solution is larger than that in water.Thus,freezing-thawing and freezing-thawing+drying-wetting in salt solution are stricter and more effective methods to evaluate the durability of concrete in salt-existing environment in cold regions.The damage extent of concrete under freezing-thawing+drying-wetting shows an ultra-superposition effect.The order of concrete durability deterioration degree in these experiments is determined.It shows that effects of multi-damage factors are greater than those of single-damage factor.

Modeling Boundary and Edge Effect of Chloride Diffusion for Durability Design of Concrete Structures Exposed in Marine Environment

According to the Fick＇s second law of diffusion, six analytical solutions of chloride profile in concrete were studied and discussed with regard to different boundary and initial conditions. In those analytical solutions, the most prevailing error-function solution which is based on semi-infinite assumption is the simple one, but may under-estimate the chloride content in concrete and over-rate the life time prediction of concrete structures. The experimental results show that compared with other solutions, the chloride content in concrete predicted by error-function model is the minimum, and the calculation difference produced by different analytical models should not be ignored. The influence of models on chloride content prediction is more than other environment and material coefficients in some time. In order to get a more realistic prediction model, modification to error-function model is suggested based on analysis and calculation examples concerning the boundary and edge effect.

Resistance to acid degradation,sorptivity,and setting time of geopolymer mortars

Experimental evaluations were conducted to determine the water sorptivity,setting time,and resistance to a highly acidic environment,of mortar with alkali-activated ground granulated blast furnace slag(GBS)binder and also of combinations of fly ash and GBS binders.Binders were activated using mixtures of NaOH and Na_(2)SiO_(3)solutions.The molarity of NaOH in the mixtures ranged from 10 mol·L^(−1)to 16 mol·L^(−1),and the Na_(2)SiO_(3)/NaOH ratio was varied from 1.5 to 2.5.Mortar samples were produced using three binder combinations:1)GBS as the only binder;2)blended binder with a slag-to-fly ash ratio of 3:1;and 3)mixed binder with 1:1 ratio of slag to fly ash.Mortar samples were mixed and cured at(22±2)°C till the day of the test.The impact of activator solution alkalinity,activator ratio Na_(2)SiO_(3)/NaOH,GBS content on the rate of water absorption were evaluated.After 7,28,and 90 d of immersion in a 10%sulfuric acid solution,the resistance of a geopolymer matrix to degradation was assessed by measuring the change in sample weight.The influence of solution alkalinity and relative fly ash content on setting times was investigated.Alkali-activated mortar with a slag-to-fly ash ratio of 3:1 had the least sorptivity compared to the two other binder combinations,at each curing age,and for mortars made with each of the NaOH alkaline activator concentrations.Mortar sorptivity decreased with age and sodium hydroxide concentrations,suggesting the production of geopolymerization products.No reduction in weight of sample occurred after immersion in the strong acid H_(2)SO_(4)solution for three months,regardless of binder combination.This was due to the synthesis of hydration and geopolymerization products in the presence of curing water,which outweighed the degradation of the geopolymer matrix caused by sulfuric acid.