Study on Modified Water Permeability Method for Fly Ash Concrete in Comparison with DIN 1048 (Part 5)

The primary cause of concrete deterioration is water permeability through it, which is typically studied using different codes of practices (German, European, and Indian standard codes). It has limitations such as long testing duration, equipment consuming large space, full penetration for low-strength concrete, and undetectable penetration for high-strength concrete. As a result of recognizing the need for a new method for testing low-strength concrete, this article presents a new approach called Modified water permeability. To check the viability of the Modified method, the concrete mix is designed with and without fly ash based on cementing efficiency approach. The addition of fly ash has shown enhancement in resisting water penetration through concrete. The water penetration depth was reduced by around 10-48% with the addition of different percentages of fly ash, for effective w/c between 0.33 and 0.54. However, for low-strength concrete, the traditional method has shown complete water penetration. These specimens were tested effectively using a modified method. The improvement due to the addition of fly ash was observed in all strength ranges. For validation, the traditional and modified water permeability test results of standard concrete were correlated, which reveals a significant and logical trend. Moreover, the results revealed that the modified method is appropriate for both ordinary and standard concrete.

Automated summary

The primary cause of concrete deterioration is water permeability through it. Different codes of practices are used to study this, but they have limitations such as long testing duration and undetectable penetration for high-strength concrete. Therefore, a new method called Modified water permeability is proposed in this article.