Use of Electrical Test Method
on Determination Aging Factor
of Concrete Incorporating
Supplementary Cementitious Materials
Hossein Mosavi, Raid Alrashidi, Mohammed Almarshoud,
Mohammed H. Alyami, Kyle A. Riding, Christopher C. Ferraro,
Michael D. A. Thomas and Harvey DeFord
Abstract One of the biggest benefits of using supplementary cementitious materi-
als (SCMs) in concrete is the large reduction in the concrete chloride ion diffusion
coefficient with age. The formation factor calculated from electrical resistivity mea-
surements is proportional to the concrete effective chloride diffusion coefficient. Tra-
ditionally, the aging factor used in service life modeling has been determined from
examination of the apparent diffusion coefficient calculated from concrete bulk diffu-
sion experiments, lumping chloride binding and with diffusion. This study proposes
to use the formation factor determined from electrical resistivity tests to quantify
the concrete aging parameter for service life modeling. To determine the effect of
cement chemical composition, four types of cement were tested including type I/II
low alkali cement, type IL cement, type V cement and type I/II high alkali cement.
Silica fume, slag cement, Class F fly ash, and metakaolin were used as supplementary
cementitious materials (SCMs) in binary and ternary blends with different replace-
ment ratios to evaluate the effect of SCMs on the concrete electrical properties with
age. The electrical properties were determined at 28, 56, 91, 182 and 365 days. A
discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of this method over traditional
methods to quantify aging are presented.
Keywords Chloride diffusion · Chloride migration · Aging factor · Service life
modeling
H. Mosavi · R. Alrashidi · M. Almarshoud · M. H. Alyami · K. A. Riding (B ) · C. C. Ferraro
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
e-mail: kyle.riding@essie.ufl.edu
H. Mosavi
e-mail: smosavi@ufl.edu
M. D. A. Thomas
University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, Canada
H. DeFord
Florida Department of Transportation, Gainesville, FL, USA
© RILEM 2020
J. F. Martirena-Hernandez et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference of
Sustainable Production and Use of Cement and Concrete, RILEM Bookseries 22,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22034-1_34
299