Freeze-thaw resistance of concrete with marginal air content : final report

2006Final report; 2001-2004PDFTech ReportFHWA-HRT-06-117Freeze thaw testsFreeze thaw durabilityConcreteAir contentVoid ratiosAdmixturesFreeze-thawVinsol resinSyntheticAir-entraining admixtureMarginal airUnited States. Federal Highway Administration. Office of Infrastructure Research and DevelopmentTanesi, JussaraMeininger, RichardUnited States. Federal Highway Administration. Office of Infrastructure Research and DevelopmentNTL-HIGHWAY/ROAD TRANSPORTATION-HIGHWAY/ROAD TRANSPORTATIONNTL-HIGHWAY/ROAD TRANSPORTATION-Pavement Management and PerformanceNTL-HIGHWAY/ROAD TRANSPORTATION-MaterialsFederal Highway AdministrationFreeze-thaw resistance is a key durability factor for concrete pavements. Recommendations for the airvoid system parameters are normally: 6 \ub1 1 percent total air, and spacing factor less than 0.20millimeters. However, it was observed that some concretes that did not possess these commonlyaccepted thresholds presented good freeze-thaw resistance in laboratory studies.This study evaluated the freeze-thaw resistance of several \u201cmarginal\u201d air void mixes, with twodifferent types of air-entraining admixtures (AEA)\u2014a Vinsol resin and a synthetic admixture. Thisstudy used rapid cycles of freezing and thawing in plain water, in the absence of deicing salts.For the specific materials and concrete mixture proportions used in this project, the marginal air mixes(concretes with fresh air contents of 3.5 percent or higher) presented an adequate freeze-thawperformance when Vinsol resin based air-entraining admixture was used. The synthetic admixture usedin this study did not show the same good performance as the Vinsol resin admixture