Abstract
All over the world, particularly in severe environmental conditions, there are reinforced concrete structures that develop nonnegligible phenomena of durability problems. Most of the durability problems are related to hazardous substances invasion. Both engineering practice and scientific studies have revealed that the transport property of near-surface concrete is a main factor in the durability of concrete structures. Among many transport parameters, the chloride ion diffusion coefficient is the most important one, which provides important information on material design and service life prediction. In this paper, AC impedance spectroscopy technology was employed in the measurement of chloride ion diffusion coefficient. The relationship between mesostructure parameters and chloride ion diffusion coefficient was deduced by introducing a reasonable equivalent circuit model. Taking into account the conductivity difference caused by various cementitious material systems, the diffusion coefficient can be corrected, and a diffusion coefficient determination method based on AC impedance spectroscopy technique was established. For the convenience of application, a relationship between the newly proposed method and a widely recognized standard method was obtained. The proposed method can be applied to laboratory testing and establishes the theoretical basis for field tests.
Highlights
Durability of concrete structures is one of the unsolved problems in the field of civil engineering and is an international research concern [1]
Durability problems are largely caused by the intrusion of external hazardous substances, which means that the transport property of near-surface concrete is an important aspect that affects durability [2]
A generally accepted fact is that transport property is essentially determined by the mesostructure
Summary
Durability of concrete structures is one of the unsolved problems in the field of civil engineering and is an international research concern [1]. Its pore system includes C-S-H gel pores, capillary pores, microcracks, and micropores. Many ions, such as Ca2+, Na+, K+, OH−, Cl−, and SO42−, exist, which constitute a complex dynamic electrochemical system. To separate the desired mesostructure parameters from measured impedance data, researchers have proposed a number of equivalent circuit models [3,4,5,6,7,8]. Some model parameters can be obtained through numerical fitting by using measured data and a preset equivalent circuit model. These parameters can be used as quantitative characterization of the mesostructure and hydration degree of cement-based material
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