ABSTRACT

THE VERY LONG TERM PERFORMANCE OF CEMENT AND CONCRETE

P.P. GLASSER University of Aberdeen, Old Aberdeen Scotland, U.K

Abstract

Cement and concrete technology in nuclear engineering shares goals with civil engineering: for example, how can we predict the future performance of materials and validate our predictive models? Differences in aspects of performance emerge: cement backfills may be expected to retain a chemical conditioning ability rather than physical strength. However, sufficient communality of approach exists so that methodologies used in nuclear technology may prove relevant to chemically-related aspects of the durability of conventional concretes. Keywords: Alkalinity, cement chemistry, corrosion, durability, nuclear wastes.