Freeze and Thaw and Thermal Fatigue Resistance of LMM Incorporating CNT

This paper aims to investigate the effect of adding carbon nanotubes (CNT) to latex modified mortar (LMM) with 0 wt% to 1.5 wt% of latex on the mechanical characteristics of LMM. Various types of samples were prepared. It was found that adding CNT enhances the mechanical characteristics of LMM. While it is important to assess the significance of using CNTs to improve the resistance of mortar to different environmental conditions, two types of thermal cycles were applied to the samples. That is, the samples were subjected to a number of freeze-thaw cycles according to ASTM C-666 to simulate winter outdoor condition in the US northern area; the samples were subjected to thermal fatigue cycles from 16^oC to 40^oC to simulate the summer outdoor condition. Some of cube and cylinder samples were tested after 50% of the total number of cycles in order to assess the effect of the number of cycles on the sample performance. After all cycles were completed, all the remaining cubes and cylinders samples were tested. The effectiveness of adding CNTs was evaluated by comparing between the performance of control LMM samples and the samples with different CNT content.