Repair of Cracks in Concrete by Eletrochemical Accretion of Minerals from Seawater: A Feasibility Study

About the report:

For the rehabilitation of damaged concrete piles situated in coastal marine environment, the feasibility of sealing cracks in reinforced concrete by electrochemical accretion of seawater minerals in the cracks was investigated. Two different series of reinforced concrete specimens with induced cracks were subjected to the accretion processes under various combinations of accretion parameters (current level and time). The extent to which the accretion processes sealed the cracks and improved the structural quality of these specimens was assessed by the use of nondestructive inspection techniques such as neutron radiography and ultrasonic pulse velocity measurement. The results established that the electrochemical accretion processes can be utilized to seal undesirable cracks in concrete piles located in marine environments. Unfortunately, even the lowest accretion current (1.0 uA/sq mm) used in the study appeared to be too high, since it induced too rapid a deposition and at wrong locations inside a crack, which led to incomplete sealing. The results implied that a significantly lower accretion current, which is probably close to that typically used in a cathodic protection system for concrete structures, may be all that is needed to achieve complete sealing of any crack in a concrete pile.

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