Measuring damaging Freeze-Thaw cycles in the field

Abstract

Cementitious materials with a high degree of saturation (DOS) can develop freeze–thaw damage when exposed to freezing temperatures. However, when the DOS of the material is below a threshold value, no freeze–thaw damage should be expected. This work develops a novel way to use resistivity and temperature to measure the DOS, ice formation, and melting at different depths in an insulated mortar sample. The samples were placed at two locations with different weather conditions. The results show that the number of freeze–thaw cycles observed did not always correlate with the number of times the air temperature around a sample went below 0 °C. This highlights the importance of understanding DOS over the depth and temperature during a freezing event. The method presents a practical approach to make widespread measurements of the number of damaging freeze–thaw cycles in field concretes.