Estudo da formação da etringita tardia em concreto por calor de hidratação do cimento ; Study of delayed ettringite formation in portland cement by hydration heat

Delayed ettringite formation (DEF) is a special type of an internal sulfate attack with SO42- ions from cement. This process is distinguished by neoformation of ettringite in concrete thermally cured at high temperature levels and exposed to high moisture in service life. This phenomenon can promote expansion and cracking, leading to rupture and spalling, achieving severe deterioration. This research had an experimental approach with the purpose to investigate DEF in concretes with pozzolanic Portland cement containing fly ash. These concretes were undergone to temperature rise by heat of hydration. It was produced two types of pumped concrete with cement content of 350 kg/m3 and 450 kg/m3 containing basaltic aggregate. Two big specimens were cast containing 200 liters of concrete and were immediately submitted to adiabatic temperature rise tests. After that, several specimens were drilled from them in order to evaluate compressive strength and elasticity modulus, as well as microstructural investigations by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X Ray diffraction (XRD) along 270 days. In addition, it was cast several cylindrical and prismatic samples with concrete containing 350 kg/m3of cement. Some of them were stored at the same condition of those during the thermal cure and others were conditioned in a moist room as reference, for properties and microstructural investigation. Prismatic ones were submitted to mass variation study, ultrasonic wave tests and also expansion tests. In order to complement this experimental program, a specific study on cement pastes was performed. This involved casting three series of cylindrical samples submitted to different cure cycles followed by evaluation of mass variation, ultrasonic velocity and also microstructure investigation by SEM and XRD. Main results proved that rising internal temperature of concrete by hydration heat above 60ºC promote delayed ettringite formation by microstructural analyses, although this formation had not caused negative consequences on mechanic ...