Fast Saturating of Concrete
Fast Saturating of Concrete
(OP)
Hello concrete experts,
I took a few hundred 4*8 in cylindrical concrete cores from various bridge decks in Michigan. I need to fully saturate them with water in a short period of time.
Could you please suggest a method or trick to saturate them as quick as possible?
I can't submerge them in water bath because it takes days or sometimes weeks to fully saturate all the pores.
Thanks.
I took a few hundred 4*8 in cylindrical concrete cores from various bridge decks in Michigan. I need to fully saturate them with water in a short period of time.
Could you please suggest a method or trick to saturate them as quick as possible?
I can't submerge them in water bath because it takes days or sometimes weeks to fully saturate all the pores.
Thanks.





RE: Fast Saturating of Concrete
RE: Fast Saturating of Concrete
j/k. it's been a week so advice window has passed.
i did want to lay a bet on what happened....
you discussed Ron's with the Client and shaped the conversation with "well, it's not really per the ASTM.... but we could do this" to give the Client a reason to justify not spending the money on making you do something very annoying. You ended up agreeing to taking measurements twice... tomorrow (monday 11/24) and then again 14 days later as follow-up.
did i win a prize?
RE: Fast Saturating of Concrete
hahaha almost my case. However it's an ongoing project and we need to dry/saturate/test/dry agagin several times. So share with me if you've got an idea.
RE: Fast Saturating of Concrete
In a previous life, I worked for a concrete block producer and we had a very good relationship with a mufti-location testing lab company and did some work for the lab. They trying to investigate the ultimate strength of concrete that may have been subjected to freezing. They would deliver samples and we would subject them to our normal curing cycle that was 30 minute rise in saturated steam to 365F (150 psi) followed by a soaking period at 100% saturation of about 5 hours and then a 45 minute blow-down to make crate a concrete product that went through a curing cycle (while saturated at elevated temperatures) to create results that could be correlated to ultimate strengths. A cycle would usually be 5,000 block (about 200,000#). This subjected samples (at 30% moisture)to being saturated for curing to proceed, held for period of time under pressure and then dried to about 2% moisture.
It is a unique process if you can find a facility to do the preparation for testing. - Correlation of results would be a challenge since the cement reaction at elevated temperatures is somewhat different.
Dick
Engineer and international traveler interested in construction techniques, problems and proper design.