Design and Assessment of a Lightweight Polymer Concrete Utility Manhole

Luciano Leonardi,Analía Vazquez,Tomas Leizerow,Eliana Agaliotis,Humberto Balzamo,Teresa M Pique,Celina Bernal

doi:10.1155/2019/5234719

Abstract

Polymer concrete is a composite using polymer instead of portland cement as a binder. It allows optimizing the tensile and cracking strength and the chemical resistance of a concrete structure. In this study, different formulations were assessed in order to optimize a polymer concrete underground utility manhole with minimum weight. Formulations were based on an epoxy-amine system mixed with fine regular-weight aggregates and ultralightweight aggregates. The objective was to design and assess an underground utility structure with the epoxy chemical resistance, strength, and lightweight and to study whether the replacement of regular-weight aggregates by ultralightweight aggregates would contribute to improve the strength and reduce the structure weight. Two polymer concrete systems were designed from its formulation, and their mechanical performance was evaluated experimentally. A numerical model was developed for a polymer concrete underground utility structure made from the different formulations. It was simplified as a box subjected to typical soil loads. The size of the box is a standard one. Its minimum wall thickness is specified for sustaining the in-use service pressures obtained from numerical simulation. The model predicted that the epoxy/regular-weight aggregate formulation could be used with a wall thickness significantly smaller than the formulation with ultralightweight aggregates. In addition, the underground utility structure made with this formulation would weigh six times less than the same box made with a traditional portland cement concrete.

Highlights

Polymer concrete is a composite material where the binder is a thermosetting polymer reinforced with aggregates
E thermosetting polymers used for polymer concrete are unsaturated polyester (UP), vinyl ester (VE), methyl methacrylate (MMA), furan resin (FU), and epoxy resins [3]. e unsaturated polyester and vinyl ester are low-cost resins; the common use of styrene for their cross-linking makes them difficult to work with because of its high volatility
E areas underneath the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) peaks in Figure 5 are proportional to the reaction heat value. e highest value was observed for the 100/35 epoxy/hardener system with a reduced curing temperature range. erefore, this system was chosen as the binder in the polymer concrete formulations

Summary

Introduction

Polymer concrete is a composite material where the binder is a thermosetting polymer reinforced with aggregates It was developed in 1970 responding to the need of a lightweight material with high compressive strength and good chemical resistance [1, 2]. MMA was used because it has good workability and high reactivity, but it presents high flammability and unpleasant odor such as UP and VE [9] Another thermosetting polymer commonly used for polymer concrete is epoxy [10,11,12]. It has no volatiles, presents different reactivity degrees depending on the curing agent, and higher chemical resistance compared to UP resin [13]

Methods

Results

Conclusion