Title
Measuring Concrete Sealer Effectiveness for the Idaho Transportation Department
Document Type
Student Presentation
Presentation Date
4-15-2013
Faculty Sponsor
George Murgel
Abstract
The Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) has great interest in learning how to increase the service life of Portland Cement Concrete Pavements (PCCP) using concrete sealer treatments. These treatments attempt to lower maintenance time and cost by slowing PCCP deterioration is due to the physical and chemical processes. The following are tests that were conducted to determine the effectiveness of the sealer treatments using tests suggested by AASHTO, ASTM, and NCHRP: 1. Saltwater absorption test helped measure the ability of the sealer to limit the ingress of chlorides into the concrete. 2. Alkali resistance test helped determine the ability of the sealer to resist penetration from alkali solutions. 3. Chloride content test using the Acid Soluble Chloride Ion Content Method 1: Potentiometric Titration helped determine the amount of chloride content on the slabs by titrating at four different depths. During the saltwater absorption test Silane/Epoxy dual treatment and Silane/HMWM sustained the levels of chloride to the minimum while the single systems increased 60%. Similar in the Alkali test the levels of exposure were reduced to the minimum by Silane/Epoxy and Silane/HMWM while the levels of exposure on the control samples were 100%. In the Chloride test we were able to see that no matter the type of sealer we used the levels of Chloride were minimum compared to the control samples.