Obtaining progressive chloride profiles in cementitious materials

The ingress of chloride into concrete is controlled by its absorption and diffusion characteristics. The authors have carried out an investigation to monitor the rate of ingress of chlorides during a 48-week cyclic wetting and drying regime using a variety of cement blends, viz. pulverised fuel ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag, metakaolin and microsilica. Chloride profiles were obtained by analysing concrete dust samples extracted from different depths from the surface that was exposed to the chloride exposure regime. The resistivity of the concrete was determined by measuring conductance between pairs of electrodes, in order to assess if this could be used to determine the presence of chlorides. The water absorption (sorptivity) of the concrete was also measured in order to determine if any correlation existed with the chloride ingress. The chloride profiles depended on both the duration of exposure and the type of cementitious material. A linear relationship was established between the depths to a constant chloride concentration of 0.2% by weight of cementitious material and the square root of time, yielding a rate of chloride ingress coefficient. This coefficient was found to depend on the type of cementitious material. The lowest value was obtained for slag concrete and the highest value was found for the OPC concrete. This corresponded well with the results from the resistivity profiles which indicated slag cement was best at resisting chloride penetration and the OPC concrete the worst. The sorptivity decreased significantly after the testing regime, due to pore refinement caused by continued hydration and the binding of chloride ions, leading to a reduction in continuous porosity. No correlation was found between the sorptivity and the rate of chloride ingress, which indicates that the dominant mechanism responsible for the transport of the chloride ions was not absorption.