High-Durability Concrete with Supplementary Cementitious Admixtures Used in Corrosive Environments

Shiming Liu,Juntao Dang,Shunbo Zhao,Miaomiao Zhu,Zhiguo Ren,Mingshuang Zhao,Xinxin Ding

doi:10.3390/cryst11020196

Abstract

Durability of concrete is of great significance to prolong the service life of concrete structures in corrosive environments. Aiming at the economical and environment-friendly production of concrete by comprehensive utilization of the supplementary cementitious materials made of industrial byproducts, the resistances to chloride penetration, sulfate attack, and frost of high-performance concrete were studied in this paper. Fifteen concretes were designed at different water–binder ratio with the changes of contents of fly ash (FA), silica fume (SF), ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS), and admixture of sulfate corrosion-resistance (AS). The compressive strength, the total electric flux of chloride penetrability, the sulfate resistance coefficient, and the indices of freezing and thawing were measured. Results indicate that, depending on the chemical composition, fineness, and pozzolanic activity, the supplementary cementitious admixtures had different effects on the compressive strength and the durability of concrete; despite having a higher fineness and pozzolanic activity, the GGBS gave out a negative effect on concrete due to a similar chemical composition with cement; the SF and FA presented beneficial effects on concrete whether they were used singly with GGBS or jointly with GGBS; the AS improved the compressive strength and the sulfate corrosion resistance of concrete. In general, the grade of durability was positively related to the compressive strength of concrete. Except for the concretes admixed only with GGBS or with GGBS and FA, others had super durability with the compressive strength varying from 70 MPa to 113 MPa. The concretes with water to binder ratio of 0.29 and total binders of 500 kg/m3 admixed with 7% FA + 8% SF + 8% GGBS or 7% FA + 8% SF + 8% GGBS + (10~12)% AS presented the highest grades of resistances specified in China codes to chloride penetration, sulfate corrosion, and frost, while the compressive strength was about 100 MPa.

Highlights

The high activity of silica fume (SF) comes from the amorphous silica with high volcano ash activity that can react with Ca(OH)2, a cement hydration product, to form a calcium–silicate–hydrate (C–S–H) gel [14,15,16,17]
SF and fly ash (FA) benefit the compressive strength and durability of concrete, and the negative effect of ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS) can be overcome with the hybrid use of SF, FA, and admixture of sulfate corrosion-resistance (AS)
With the different combinations of the supplementary cementitious admixtures, the concrete can be produced with the compressive strength ranging from 70 MPa to

Summary

Introduction

Concrete is the most widely used building material in the world. The degradation of material properties caused by environmental effects will affect the durability of concrete in the process of using concrete structures. The lack of durability of concrete will affect the normal use of the project and prematurely terminate the service life of the structure, and increase the maintenance cost during use and cause serious waste of resources [1]. The preparation of high-performance concrete with excellent durability is of great significance to improve the service life of building structures. The additional benefit is to promote the transformation and development of the construction industry

Methods

Results

Conclusion