Surface and Uniaxial Electrical Measurements on Layered Cementitious Composites having Cylindrical and Prismatic Geometries

Published

July 24, 2014

Author(s)

Robert Spragg, Scott Jones, Kenneth A. Snyder, Dale P. Bentz, Chiara Villani, Jason Weiss

Abstract

Electrical measurements are becoming a common method to assess the transport properties of concrete. For a saturated homogenous system, the surface resistance and the uniaxial resistance measurements provide equivalent measures of resistivity once geometry is appropriately taken into account. However, cementitious systems are not always homogenous. This study compares bulk and surface resistance measurements in cementitious materials intentionally composed of layered materials (i.e., layers with different resistivities). For this study, layered systems were composed of paste and mortar layers, representing the heterogeneity that can exist in the surface layers of field applications as a result of differences in moisture content, segregation, ionic ingress, carbonation, finishing operations, or ionic leaching. The objective of this study is to illustrate that these electrical measures can differ in layered systems (with sharp layer boundaries) and to demonstrate the impact of the surface layer properties on the estimation for the underlying material properties, for both cylindrical and prismatic specimens. Accounting for the effects of a surface layer requires a separate correction in addition to the overall specimen geometry corrections.

Proceedings Title

4th International Conference on the Durability of Concrete Structures

Conference Dates

July 24-26, 2014

Conference Location

West Lafayette, IN, US

Conference Title

(same as proceedings)

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

Local Download

Keywords

cement, concrete, heterogeneity, resistivity

Citation

Spragg, R. , Jones, S. , Snyder, K. , Bentz, D. , Villani, C. and Weiss, J. (2014), Surface and Uniaxial Electrical Measurements on Layered Cementitious Composites having Cylindrical and Prismatic Geometries, 4th International Conference on the Durability of Concrete Structures, West Lafayette, IN, US, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=915854 (Accessed April 25, 2024)