On the relationship between the formation factor and diffusion coefficients of Portland cement mortars

Z. Bajja (1, 2) , W. Dridi (1, 2) , B. Larbi (1, 2) , P. Le Bescop (1, 2)

1 CEA-DES (ex-DEN) - CEA-Direction des Energies (ex-Direction de l'Energie Nucléaire)
2 LECBA - Laboratoire d'Etude du Comportement des Bétons et des Argiles

Concrete durability continues to be a subject of considerable interest, especially with the use of cement based materials on structures requiring improved sustainability and resistance to aggressive ions penetration or radionuclide release. Diffusion is considered as one of the main transport phenomena that causes migration of aggressive solutes and radionuclide in a porous media according to most studies.In this work, two different tracers (an ion, and a radionuclide) were tested on the same formulations of mortars (water / cement = 0.4 and sand volume fractions from 0 to 60%) by the through-out diffusion, in order to determine the effective diffusion coefficients of each tracer and each formulation. The obtained results have proven the validity of the formation factor equation relating the effective diffusivity of a tracer to its diffusion coefficient in pure water.

Mots clés: Diffusion; mortars; cement; microstructure; formation factor

Domaines: Physique Nucléaire Expérimentale [nucl-ex]; Physique Nucléaire Théorique [nucl-th]

Z. Bajja, W. Dridi, B. Larbi, P. Le Bescop. On the relationship between the formation factor and diffusion coefficients of Portland cement mortars. ICCRRR - 4th International Conference on Concrete Repair, Rehabilitation and Retrofitting, Oct 2015, Leipzig, Germany. ⟨cea-02509264⟩