Evaluating the Carbonation Resistance of Self Compacting Concrete made with Recycled Concrete Aggregates

The paper presents the results of an investigation conducted to examine carbonation resistance of Self Compacting Concrete (SCC) made with coarse Recycled Concrete Aggregates (RCA). In total, five SCC mixes were prepared by systematically replacing coarse Natural Aggregates (NA) by RCA at 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100%. In order to measure the carbonation resistance of SCC made with RCA, accelerated carbonation tests were performed for 4 and 12 weeks of exposure to carbon dioxide. The carbonation resistance has been evaluated after curing periods of 28 and 90 days. In addition to this, the compressive strength of all the mixes was also obtained after 7, 28 and 90 days of curing and ultra-sonic pulse velocity tests (UPV) were also conducted. The results indicate that with the increase in the content of RCA as replacement of NA, decrease in the carbonation resistance, compressive strength and UPV was observed for all SCC mixes. It has been observed that the SCC mixes containing low percentages of RCA (i.e. 25%) as replacement of NA do not impart detrimental behaviour in the overall performance but higher replacement levels (50%) have been found to deteriorate the performance in terms of carbonation resistance, compressive strength and UPV