Freeze/Thaw Resistance Classes of Concretes

The freeze/thaw phenomenon is of interest for the field of transport infrastructure through the degradations it produces in the structure of construction elements. The climatic specificity of Romania on the one hand and the exposure to aggressive environments of construction elements in transport on the other hand, determine the importance of studying this phenomenon, its mode of action/propagation and also prevention and maintenance to ensure the functionality of buildings in transport infrastructure.

Currently, in the Romanian regulations [*], the assurance of sustainability is done, as in most national annexes for the application of EN 206 [1] in Europe, by a descriptive approach (concrete “designed to last”) referring to (with mandatory status) a series of requirements of the concrete composition (water / cement ratio, minimum cement dosage, entrained air, freeze/thaw resistant aggregates, etc.) and to the compressive strength (concrete compressive strength class) in depending on the classification of the element in a certain exposure class “X”.

The support of this descriptive national approach was based on the analysis of a large number of results obtained in a complex experimental program carried out by Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest, by analyzing the results obtained by laboratory tests on “candidate” cements and cements “reference” (having a good behavior and traditional use) as well as “in situ” tests/determinations on construction elements made with both categories of cements and maintained in specific environments.

At European level, performance approaches to sustainability have made clear progress. The development of accelerated laboratory experimental methods, the establishment of performance criteria, classes of resistance to various environmental actions and the link between them and the classes of exposure to various environmental actions were the starting point for experimental research whose results will be presented in this article.

Thus, in conjunction with these modern approaches, an analysis will be presented on the experimental results obtained in research on freeze/thaw resistance to different types of cements, carried out in collaboration with the laboratory of the Reinforced Concrete Structures Department, Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest and proposals for classification in different classes of freeze/thaw resistance.