Additional Porosity as a Side Effect of Polycarboxylate Addition and Its Influence on Concrete's Scaling Resistance

A side effect of using modified polycarboxylates to liquefy a concrete mix is additional pores in the concrete. They change the air void system in hardened concretes, and can be used to evaluate the freeze-thaw resistance of concretes. The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of the abovementioned quantitative and qualitative parameters on the freeze-thaw resistance of concretes. The research program was performed on eight sets of air-entraining and non-air-entraining concretes with a variable content of superplasticizer based on modified polycarboxylates. The basic composition of and air-entraining admixture content in the air-entraining concrete mixtures were held constant. Pore structure tests were performed according to EN 480-11. Scaling resistance was determined according to PKN-CEN/TS 12390-9. The results showed that as the content of modified polycarboxylates increased, the pore structure was adversely affected, and, consequently, the air void parameters deteriorated. At the same time, the freeze-thaw resistance of the non-air-entraining concretes decreased. The pores sizes also changed. As the fluidity increased, the specific surface area decreased, and, consequently, the spacing factor increased. The air-entraining concretes, despite the deterioration in the pore structure due to the modified polycarboxylates, were found to be very good quality concretes after 56 freeze-thaw cycles in the presence of 3% NaCl.