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Concrete Testing (Petrography): How would one test concrete for presence of defects? What is Petrographic Analysis?

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    • CommentAuthorzee
    • CommentTimeFeb 17th 2008 edited
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    Concrete is composed of sand, gravel, crushed rock, or other aggregates held together by a hardened paste of cement and water. As the architecture of any major city around the world can attest, concrete is one of the most widely used structural building materials. Important properties of concrete are: durability (weather resistance, resistance to chemical deterioration, resistance to erosion), workability, water tightness, strength, elasticity, creep, extensibility, and thermal properties. Entrained air content, cement & water content and type, distribution and quality of aggregates are various factors that effect properties of concrete. It should be noted that a concrete that is durable and otherwise satisfactory under normal atmospheric conditions might be wholly unsuitable under severe, environmental and eroding conditions. Water tightness is essential for hydraulic structures, but strength and rigidity are obviously important requisites for an office building.

    Petrographic analysis can be used to determine chemical and physical irregularities in concrete. This type of analysis can be used to determine chemical attack, identification of reactive aggregate, strength, mixture proportion estimates (such as water/cement ratio), cement and fly-ash content, corrosion potential of embedded steel, degree of carbonation, aggregate size and distribution, presence of alkali-aggregate or sulfate reaction. This type of information can aid to provide, the root cause of failure and extent of cracking, dusting, scaling or coating delamination.

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