Katrin Seyfarth - F.A. Finger-Institute for Building Materials Science, Department of Civil Engineering, Bauhaus- University Weimar, Coudraystrasse
Colin Giebson
Jochen Stark

Alkali-silica reaction (ASR) is a major world-wide durability problem and concretes exposed to external alkalis are particularly endangered. In Germany, concrete pavements have a long tradition but the experiences over the last years showed, that the currently standardized test methods are not able to consider externally supplied alkalis from deicers sufficiently. Especially alkali acetate and formate based deicers as used for airfields turned out to be extremely deleterious. For this reason, an ASR performance-test that was developed at the Finger-Institute (FIB) is used for some years now to assess specific concrete job mixtures regarding their ASR potential under consideration of externally supplied alkalis. The lab-field correlation of this performance-test was assessed by testing two reproduced pavement concretes that showed ASR-distress in the field after 8-12 years in service. It has been shown that the performance-test was able to assess the tested concretes correctly. Contrary, the mortar-bar test could not predict the field performance of the aggregates correctly in all cases.

alkali-silica reaction, performance-test, deicer, pavement concrete