Deformation characteristic and mechanism of blisters in cement concrete bridge deck pavement

Abstract

The waterproofing membrane applied on cement concrete bridge deck usually experiences small uplift blisters, which leads to serious corrosive problems when water infiltrates into the bridge deck through the blister area. It is very important to reveal the formation and propagation of the blister for decreasing the damage of bridge deck pavement. In this paper, the environmental simulation blister test is proposed originally, and MatchID-3D (MTI-3D) structural deformation analysis system is adopted to measure the blister deformations. The deformation characteristic and mechanism of the blister are investigated. The test results show that the stages of blister deformation can be determined according to the deflection rate. The deflection deformation of the blister is a rapid process happening mainly in the third stage, while the debonding deformation is a relatively stable and long-term process. The test temperature, initial debonding aperture, and water have great influences on the failure time, meanwhile the former two factors also affect the total debonding length seriously. An improved blister test method is developed in this paper to accurately study the blister deformation under different environmental conditions, which helps to determine effective measures to eliminate the blister in bridge deck pavement.