Porosity of Self-compacting Concrete

The construction industry demands more durable concrete with high performance. Self-compacting concrete (SCC) is developing gradually to meet many aspects of construction technology, especially reinforced concrete. On the other hand, durability properties still need some enhancements particularly in term of microstructure properties. Furthermore, there is a lack of research on non-destructive testing of self-compacting concrete. Question arises: are the contexts on the strength of conventional normal concrete (NC) extendable on the strength of SCC? Laboratory tests were carried out at the BME, Department of Construction Materials and Technologies. Aim of the research was to determine the service life of SCC with respect to normal concrete. Constant and variable parameters were determined to the concrete mixes. Constant parameters were: type of cement CEM III-A 32.5 N-MS and grading curve of the aggregate. Variable parameters were: water-cement ratio, content of cement, content of limestone powder. The purpose of this study is to analyze the implementation of economical non-pozzolanic filler additive (limestone) into the concrete matrix of SCC. Normal and Self-compacting concrete mixes were prepared to reach a correlation between porosity indicators. Results indicated that SCC mixtures had more reliable rebound index and lower total porosity values than NC; whereas water absorption in SCC was found to show considerably higher values than referred NC mixes.