from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
The durability of reinforced concrete structures is limited mainly by the reinforcement material, as which a carbon steel is widely used. Carbon steel corrosion rate increases due to carbonation or contamination with chloride anions. The activation time is strongly influenced by the concrete structure as it influences the diffusion rate of corrosion agents. Therefore, modern ultra-high performance concrete materials are designed to provide less porous structure. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was used to determine microstructure of different concrete types; ordinary portland cement concrete (OPC), and two ultra-high performance concretes with different water/cement ratio. The microstructure was compared between the different concrete types, and as influenced by the time of curing. Results obtained from EIS correlate well with those of traditionally used mercury intrusion porosimetry.
Keywords: Concrete microstructure, UHPC, OPC, EIS© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.