Age of Concrete 6

[kxa]

Is there a quick way to find out the approximate age of small concrete samples ?

 

[youngstructural]

Not that I have ever heard... As I understand it the problem is too complex to be accurate without knowing more ahead of time.

Why do you need to tell the age of a sample? If you don't know the age, you likely don't know the curing, which likely as not means it does not match what is in the field, which makes the results meaningless.

Just my two cents...

Cheers,

YS

P.S. It will be interesting to see if anyone has a method, but remember to question the value; You must know a whole lot more about a sample/cylinder in order for any test results to have real world merit.

B.Eng (Carleton), P.Eng (Ontario), MIPENZ (Structural-New Zealand)
Working in Canada, and missing my adoptive New Zealand family... at least I brought the little Kiwi with me!

 

[Ron]

No way to accurately determine the age of concrete. There are several things that you can do to infer the age of the concrete, but it requires quite of bit of information about the exposure, the air quality/conditions, the compressive strength, amount of unhydrated cement, air content, etc. Even with such effort, you're only likely to get within the same decade or two.

 

[MiketheEngineer]

Carbon dating should get you within a few thousand years or so.

 

[steellion]

Take a core sample and count the rings.

 

[Drumchaser]

Your question is vague in that no information is given as to what context "old" is used.

Assuming that your context of old is meant with-in the last few months...

"Assuming" the producer/supplier has the mix design, pilot and recent breaks, you "should" be able to correlate time with strength based on the recent history of breaks as long as the ambient temp. has not drastically changed, material sources are the same, and you can confirm the concrete was placed/cured with-in current recommended guidelines. Even so you would be guessing at best.

So I guess to answer your question, there is no quick way.

 

[kxa]

Sorry if I were vague. This is part of a forensic study and will be used in a court case. The accuracy to within a couple of years is needed.

 

[darthsoilsguy2]

Petrographic testing will tell you almost everything useful that can be found out about the contents of a sample. perhaps you could perform this test on portions of the structure with similar use that you already have historical info on as well for comparison. Wildly speculating your intent in this matter and the usefulness of any data gathered.

We could all guess this is forensic work.... people are curious why age would matter at all and how it could be a mystery if the problem is so fresh that people are still alive to sue.

 

[nuche1973]

Could you obtain a sample of rebar used in the concrete? Depending on the configuration, you could get a decent guess as to when the concrete was poured, with-in decades. You would need a chart or reference that gave the dates of when rebar changed from smooth to round, square, twisted, etc. The only variable would be that different rebar was used across the country (US).