Degradation progress of concrete subject to combined sulfate-chloride attack under drying-wetting cycles and flexural loading

This paper presents an experimental study on the damage progress of concrete subject to combined sulfate-chloride attack under drying-wetting cycles and flexural loading. Two different loading regimes (long-term loading and short-term loading), which contain three different stress levels and both tensile and compressive regions, are applied in this test. The research results indicate that flexural loading accelerates the deterioration of concrete subject to sulfate and chloride attack under dry-wetting cycles. The damage of concrete was increased with the increasing stress level under both long-term loading and short-term loading. Compare to long-term loading, concrete under short-term loading shows slight damage. In the tensile region, loading accelerate the sulfate and chloride attack of the concrete, while in the compressive region, loading improve resistance of concrete against sulfate and chloride attack and this effect is more obvious with the increase of stress levels. It was also found that mineral admixtures, such as fly ash and ground granulated blast slag can improve the resistance of concrete under combined sulfate-chloride attack, with drying-wetting cycles and flexural loading. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.