EFFECT OF SEA WATER IN MIXING AND CURING ON STRENGTH OF CONCRETE

Civil Engineering

In construction field billion tons of water is used for mixing, curing and cleaning around the world, annually. Due to this there is a large scarcity of fresh drinkable water around the world; so there is a need to save fresh water. So a study is being carried out on sea water whether to use it for mixing and curing concrete. Additionally, if use of seawater as concrete material is permitted, it will be very convenient and economical in the construction; especially in the coastal works. The effect of seawater on concrete deserves special attention as the coastal and offshore structures are exposed to simultaneous action of a number of physical and chemical deterioration processes. Moreover, 80 percent of the earth is covered by seawater either directly or indirectly (e.g. winds can carry sea water spray up to a few miles in land from the coast). In this research work, the effect of sea water and fresh water on the concrete is going to be investigated. For the preparation of concrete specimens M40 mix was adopted. The concrete specimens were cured in fresh water and salt water and tested for compressive strength at 3, 7 and 28 days, for split tensile and flexural strength at 7 and 28 days. The test result showed that the compressive strength of cubes, split tensile strength and flexural strength of concrete specimens which were cast and cured with salt water is slightly higher than the concrete specimens casted and cured with fresh water. This trend is observed for testing of cubes at different ages of curing.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.