Freezing and thawing tests of high-strength concretes

✍ Scribed by Michel Pigeon; Richard Gagné; Pierre-Claude Aïtcin; Nemkumar Banthia

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1991
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 575 KB
• Volume: 21
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-8846
• DOI: 10.1016/0008-8846(91)90179-l

✦ Synopsis

Seventeen high-strength concretes were made using Portland cement (with and without silica fume) and tested for frost resistance (using the procedure "A" (freezing and thawing in water) of ASTM Standard C 666) to analyze the influence of various parameters on the limiting value of the water to binder ratio below which air entrainment is no longer required for good freezing and thawing cycle durability. The parameters included the type of cement, the type of aggregate and the length of the curing period. The results of these tests, as well as previously published data, indicate that this value can be higher than 0,30 in certain cases, but equal to or lower than 0,25 in others, depending particularly on the characteristics of the cement. More research is needed before these values can be used as guidelines, since field exposure conditions differ from laboratory testing conditions, and because the air-void spacing factor of non-air-entrained field concretes could be significantly higher than that of laboratory made concretes.