Predicting Residual Strength in Unsaturated Concrete Exposed to Sulfate Attack
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 18, Issue 3
Abstract
Deleterious damage that manifests in cracking and strength loss due to expansion and exfoliation often occurs when hardened concrete is exposed to sulfates. For a degradation-free service life, modeling sulfate attack is as important as considerations for strength and stability in concrete. This paper focuses on modeling the impact of gypsum as a constitutive durability product responsible for strength loss in concrete due to sulfate attack. The model blends the calculation of coupled moisture-sulfate transport processes with quantitative simulation of chemical reactions involving sulfates, moisture, and an incipient portlandite phase in concrete. Account is taken of variations in sulfate and moisture diffusivities to reflect microstructural changes when a portlandite matrix is stoichiometrically transformed to gypsum. Implementation of the model to both water-saturated and unsaturated concretes is numerically achieved according to standard Galerkin procedure in the finite-element sense. Contrary to expectations, simulation results for the case of initially unsaturated specimens before immersion in a sulfate solution are not significantly different from the initially saturated condition. Calculations of global relative residual strength predicated on degradation profiles generated by the model showed good agreement with postsulfate-immersion-test residual strength data.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgment
The assistance of King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in the pursuit of this research is gratefully acknowledged.
References
Al-Amoudi, O. S. B. (1998). “Sulfate attack and reinforcement corrosion in plain and blended cements exposed to sulfate environments.” Build. Environ., 33(1), 53–61.
Carde, C., and Francois, R. (1997). “Effect of ITZ leaching on durability of cement-based materials.” Cem. Concr. Res., 27(7), 971–978.
Carde, C., Francois, R., and Torrenti, J.-M. (1996). “Leaching of both calcium hydroxide and C-S-H from cement paste: Modeling the mechanical behavior.” Cem. Concr. Res., 26(8), 1257–1268.
Kurtis, K. E., Shomglin, K., Monteiro, P. J. M., and Roesler, J. (2001). “Accelerated test for measuring sulfate resistance of calcium sulfoaluminate, calcium aluminate, and Portland cements.” J. Mater. Civ. Eng., 13(3), 216–221.
Marchand, J., Simson, E., Maltais, Y., and Beaudoin, J. J. (2002). “Theoretical analysis of the effect of weak sodium sulfate solutions on durability of concrete.” Cem. Concr. Compos., 24, 317–329.
Mehta, P. K. (1983). “Mechanism of sulfate attack on Portland cement concrete—Another look.” Cem. Concr. Res., 13, 401–406.
Rasheeduzzafar, F., Al-Amoudi, O. S. B., Abduljauwad, S. N., and Maslehuddin, M. (1994). “Magnesium-sodium sulfate attack in plain and bended cements.” J. Mater. Civ. Eng., 6(2), 201–222.
Rasheeduzzafar, F., Dakhil, H., and Al-Gahtani, A. S. (1982). “The deterioration of concrete structures in the environment of eastern Saudi Arabia.” Arabian J. Sci. Eng., 3(3), 191–209.
Saetta, A., Scotta, R., and Vitaliani, R. (1993). “Analysis of chloride diffusion into partially saturated concrete.” ACI Mater. J., 90(5), 441–451.
Saetta, A., Scotta, R., and Vitaliani, R. (1998a). “Mechanical behavior of concrete under physical-chemical attacks.” J. Eng. Mech., 124(10), 1100–1109.
Saetta, A., Scotta, R., and Vitaliani, R. (1998b). “Reliability of reinforced concrete structures under chemical-physical attack.” Arabian J. Sci. Eng., 23, 41–56.
Schneider, U., and Chen, S.-W. (1999). “Behavior of high performance concrete under ammonium nitrate and sustained load.” ACI Mater. J., 96(1), 47–51.
Segerlind, L. J. (1984). Applied finite element analysis, Wiley, New York.
Shazali, M. A. (2004). “Computational chemodamage transport modeling of durability synergies in concrete.” Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Civil Engineering, King Fahd Univ. of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
Tian, B., and Cohen, M. D. (2000). “Expansion of alite paste caused by gypsum formation during sulfate attack.” J. Mater. Civ. Eng., 12(1), 24–25.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2006 ASCE.
History
Received: Sep 21, 2004
Accepted: Jan 31, 2005
Published online: Jun 1, 2006
Published in print: Jun 2006
Notes
Note. Associate Editor: Chiara F. Ferraris
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.