Abstract
The main purpose of this study is to identify the effects of curing temperature and methyl methacrylate (MMA) content on the working life of vinyl ester polymer concreteusing MMA as a monomer, N,N-dimethyl-p-toluidine (DMP) and methyl ethyl ketone peroxide (MEKPO) as initiators and cobalt naphthenate as a promoter. The results have shown that the working life of vinyl ester polymer concrete was shortened with an increased curing temperature and a decreased MMA content. Also, it was found that the curing temperature had a greater influence on the working life of vinyl ester polymer concrete than MMA content. The working life of vinyl ester polymer concrete was found to be about 70 and 10 min longer than the setting time of vinyl ester polymeric binder at curing temperatures of -10 and 20°C respectively. The MMA content had a much smaller effect on the curing temperature. Lastly, a linear regression equation was drawn by analyzing the correlation between setting time of the binder and working life of polymer concrete, which could be used for the prediction of the working life of vinyl ester polymer concrete based on the setting time of the vinyl ester binder.
Highlights
Polymer concrete is a sort of polymer-concrete composite material made by fully replacing the cementitious binder of conventional concrete with a polymeric binder
It was found that the setting time ranged from 50-315, 23-131, 21-70 and 14-45 min when the curing temperature was -10, 0, 10 and 20°C, respectively
The methyl methacrylate (MMA) content affected the setting time of MMA-modified vinyl ester polymer concrete; the setting time tended to vary within the range of 14-249 min, 22-285 min and 25-315 min for MMA contents of 0, 2.5 and 5.0 wt.%, respectively
Summary
Polymer concrete is a sort of polymer-concrete composite material made by fully replacing the cementitious binder of conventional concrete with a polymeric binder Due to such nature, various material properties such as strength, adhesion, water tightness, chemical resistance, freeze-thaw resistance and abrasion resistance of polymer concrete are generally improved to a great extent in comparison with ordinary Portland cement concrete (Chandra and Ohama, 1994). It is recognized that polymer concrete has some limitations originated from high cost of polymer resins, large shrinkage developed during hardening process and large thermal volume changes To resolve these issues, many studies are underway to enhance the binder characteristics and to develop shrinkage reducing agents and a new type of resins (Fowler, 1989). A vinyl ester resin employed in this study is known to have excellent chemical and corrosion resistance coupled with outstanding heat performance, which makes the vinyl ester resin a good choice for practical applications such as in swimming pools, sewer pipes and solvent storage tanks (Caoand and Lee, 2003; Cook et al, 1997)
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