Furnace Waste Prevents Concrete Cracks

May-21-17 A new concrete mix featuring a furnace waste product could help protect the concrete from cracking.

Although road salts are a common way to remove ice from roadways, the salt reacts with the calcium hydroxide in the cement to form calcium oxychloride, which expands to cause cracks in the roadway. To help combat this cracking, Yaghoob Farnam, PhD, replaced the calcium hydroxide in the mix with fly ash, slag and silica fume. Not only does the new mix resist cracking, it is also made using readily available waste products from furnaces.

In tests, the furnace-waste concrete showed no signs of degradation even after eight days of exposure to road salts, while standard concrete began to break down after the same amount of time.

More Info about this Invention:

[NEWATLAS.COM]
[DREXEL.EDU]

---