Monitoring the Self-healing of Concrete from the Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity

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Concrete has the ability to naturally heal its cracks, in a process called self-healing. This article aimed to analyze the self-healing of concretes, evaluating the influence of fly ash and the age of occurrence of cracks. Concrete specimens were submitted to cracking at 7 and 28 days. Subsequently, the samples were exposed to 12 wetting and drying cycles in order to favor the self-healing process. The phenomenon was evaluated through the ultrasonic pulse velocity testing, performed weekly on the specimens from the molding stage until the end of all cycles. The concretes showed a decrease in ultrasonic pulse velocity at the time they were cracked. This is due to the greater difficulty in the propagation of ultrasonic waves in the voids formed during cracking. This drop was higher for concrete with fly ash. Also, the results show that the fly ash concretes presented a more expressive self-healing process when cracked at 28 days, which may be related to the presence of pozzolanic reactions and the presence of more anhydrous particles. The concretes without fly ash had self-healing when they were cracked at 7 days. This is explained by the high hydration rate characteristic of ordinary Portland cement.