STRUCTURAL PERFORMANCE OF GROUTING USING POLYMER CONCRETE

This study aims to determine the structural performance of polymer concrete in grouting purpose. Grout has been used in sealing cracks on concrete structures, grouting anchor and retaining wall. Conventional grout is produced from cement, sand and water, while this polymer grout is produced from unsaturated polyester resin and fly ash. In this research, the grout was tested for its mechanical properties including its compressive strength, flexural strength and shear strength. It was also being tested for its durability in terms of chemical resistance. The aggressive medium used were sodium chloride, sodium hydroxide, magnesium sulfate and sulfuric acid. Sodium chloride acts as chloride attack from sea water, sodium hydroxide acts as cleaning products, magnesium sulfate acts as sulphate attack from soil and sulfuric acid acts as acid rain. Before all the tests being carried out, the optimum mix designs were being selected from various resin to waste ratio based on their workability and compressive strength. The results show that the polymer grout has higher compressive, flexural and shear strength than conventional grout. The polymer grout also performed rapid curing time and high strength development which make it very suitable to be used as grout. Besides, polymer concrete also posed high chemical resistance that provides it high durability even in critical environment. According to the results, the polymer concrete is proved to have the ability to be used for grouting purpose