Enhancing the ABS ACOUSTIC BUBBLE SPECTROMETER® for Kansas

Degradation of in-service concrete infrastructure has proven to be a large public expense, estimated in the billions of dollars annually in the US. Degradation of bridge decks and concrete pavement joints forces agencies like KDOT to direct funds toward repair, rehabilitation, and / or replacement activities at the expense of other important programs and initiatives. Thus, avoiding degradation is an important goal. Freeze-thaw (F-T) degradation of concrete pavements represents a significant and expensive problem for Midwest states, including Kansas. Determining the susceptibility of a particular concrete mix to F-T degradation is a complicated problem, however a handful of mix-design related parameters including aggregate type and content, water-to-cementitious materials ratio, supplementary cementitious materials, and entrained air content have all been shown to influence F-T durability. Well-distributed entrained air in the Portland cement paste provides room to relieve water pressure by changing volume and also reduces the concrete stiffness, both of which reduce concrete tensile stresses during freezing. T.C. Powers recognized the importance of entrained air for combatting F-T durability as early as 1955 and little has changed to alter this theory in the past 65 years; entrained air remains a key F-T durability requirement. Current testing protocols for measuring total air content (e.g. ASTM C231) are reliable, but are not capable of assessing the air void system quality. With the support of the US Department of Transportation and the technical monitoring of the Federal Highway Administration, DYNAFLOW, INC. has adapted the ABS ACOUSTIC BUBBLE SPECTROMETER® for the task of assessing air void system quality in fresh concrete. Using acoustic transducers submerged in the fresh concrete, the ABS technology provides information on the quantity and size range of detected bubbles as well as some quantities of interest from the well-known ASTM C457 test in less than one minute, including sample collection. Currently the robustness of the ABS for arbitrary concrete mixtures has not been established yet, nor is the predictive capability for assessing freeze-thaw protection. The ABS should be independently tested to assess its readiness for field implementation and to provide input to DYNAFLOW, INC. for its improvement. In a separate project, the ABS ACOUSTIC BUBBLE SPECTROMETER® will be evaluated for the ability to predict freezing and thawing performance of concrete mixtures prepared in the laboratory with carefully parameterized mixture design characteristics. The ABS ACOUSTIC BUBBLE SPECTROMETER® should also be evaluated for field prepared mixtures.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $29957
• Contract Numbers:

  RE-0828-01

  C2182

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Kansas Department of Transportation

  Eisenhower State Office Building
  700 SW Harrison Street
  Topeka, KS  United States  66603-3754
• Performing Organizations:

  Kansas State University Transportation Center

  Kansas State University
  Department of Civil Engineering
  Manhattan, KS  United States  66506
• Principal Investigators:

  Jones, Christopher

• Start Date: 20210701
• Expected Completion Date: 20231231
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Acoustic detectors; Air voids; Bridge decks; Concrete pavements; Degradation failures; Mix design; Spectrometers
• Geographic Terms: Kansas
• Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Pavements;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01856811
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Kansas Department of Transportation
• Contract Numbers: RE-0828-01, C2182
• Files: RIP, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Aug 30 2022 5:20PM