Sulfate Attack Impact on Concrete Structures

Durability of reinforced concrete structures is a great challenge because factors affecting concrete durability are numerous including the concrete permeability, aggregate content, cement type and quantity, water/cement ratio and environmental factors such as temperature, humidity and level of concentrations of aggressive species. Sulfate attack in concrete structures is one of the major durability problems around the world. While sulfate attack in RC structures is not as prevalent as reinforcement corrosion, its effect may as well be devastating especially in region having very high concentration of sulfate ion such as the Arabian Gulf in Saudi Arabia. In order to mitigate the effect of sulfate attack in concrete structures, researchers are recently engaging in investigations targeting the use of supplementary cementitious materials for concrete production. However, majority of the SCM are not industrially produced and hence, there properties would be region dependent. Also, the vast majority of the experimental studies on sulfate attack have been carried out using macro-scale indicators, length change and compressive strength loss, which have been evidenced to fall short of capability for service life prediction and also require large experimental volume. The proposed research intends to develop experimental program and numerical model to study the effect of sulfate attack on Portland and blended cement concrete through sulfate ion concentration measurement with a view to having a strong basis for the service life prediction of RC structures. Locally available supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) will be used for the blended concrete. Some of the tangible and measurable outcomes of the proposed research include adequate material selection for design of sulfate resistant RC members and possible incorporation of the developed model in the service life software recently under development that lead to improve Saudi infrastructure durability. The project team possesses significant experience in the area of the project. The project would be completed in 36 months at a cost of SR 289,230.