ABSTRACT
The drying and resaturation procedure prior to laboratory frost/salt testing can have a decisive effect on the frost test performance of concrete. Laboratory experiments and numerical simulations were performed to investigate the penetration of drying (or the drying depth) of initially saturated w/b = 0.45 concrete samples exposed to two different environments for 14 days. By measuring weightloss during uniaxial drying of slices of different thickness and plotting weightloss vs. thickness, it appears that the influenced depth is lower for concrete with 5 % silica fume (about 12 mm) than for OPC concrete (about 18 mm).
Numerical simulations were performed to study effect of sorption data and surface transfer coefficient (B) on the drying. The short time drying could be simulated, but it appears that more data on factors affecting B are needed.
The applicability of “depth of influence” as an exact description of the early phase of drying and some aspects of simulation of natural, cyclic, exposure are discussed briefly.
