ABSTRACT
The present of dissolved salts in sea water such as sodium chloride, magnesium chloride, magnesium sulphate, calcium sulphate, pottasium chloride and potassium sulphate has significant affect on the durability properties of concrete structures. The deterioration of normal concrete resulting from cyclic exposure in sea water had caused cracking, corrosion of reinforcement. To ensure the durability performance of concrete based material, in practice three types of concrete has been used as alternative to conventional concrete i.e. mortar modified with synthetic or natural rubber latex, resin concrete and polymer impregnated concrete. However in this research, the authors only investigate the durability performance of latex modified mortars which includes Dow latex (DW), carboxylated styrene butadiene copolymer 123 latex (SB123), natural rubber latex (NR), a combination natural rubber – synthetic latexes (Dow latex); NDW, natural rubber-carboxylated styrene butadiene copolymer 123 latex (NSB). These specimen were compared with the unmodified control (CON) for durability performance. All specimens were designed in accordance with method proposed by M.F. Canovas, where maximum diameter of aggregate has been taken into account for determining the quantity of cement as shown in the following equation.
