Assessing Impact and Blast Resilience of Polymer Coated Cementitious Materials

RESEARCH MOTIVATION: The bridge piers are highly vulnerable to the impact and blast loads. The position in which they are constructed makes it difficult to install protective devices around them. By the current AASHTO standard, it is possible to under-design bridge piers for commercial vehicle impacts and other events such as blast. OBJECTIVE: To improve impact and blast resilience of bridge piers using polymeric coatings. CONCLUSION • Polymer coating of Portland cement concrete can be achieved with a good bonding. • The polymeric coating seem to improve impact resilience of Portland cement concrete by increasing absorbed impact energy (i.e., area underneath the curve of acceleration vs time)