Deterioration of Concrete in Ambient Marine Environment

Structural concrete exposed to marine environment deserves special attention as the diffused sea salts chemically react with harden cement matrix and forms various expansive/leachable compounds leadingto loss of material, strength, cracking, spalling etc. This study cover the effect of sea water on thespecimens cast from two grades of concrete exposed to simulated marine environment over a year. Enhanced salt concentration i.e. 1N, 3N, 6N, 12N of the curing solution was used to get the accelerated effect. Several destructive and non destructive tests including XRD study were performed to assess thestate of deterioration. From test results, it is observed that concrete exposed to sea water of different concentration suffers a loss of compression strength of around 19% and 33%, respectively as compared to 28 days and 365 days of plain water cured concrete.

Keywords:

Durability , Alternate Wetting-drying Cycle , Compressive Strength , Permeability , Marine Environment