Abstract
Ferrocement is a type of thin walled reinforced concrete commonly constructed of cement mortar reinforced with closely spaced layers of continuous and relatively small size wire mesh. Durability of a structure is its resistance to weathering action, chemical attack, cracking or any other process of destruction. The durability of ferrocement depends on the quality of ferrocement, mesh type, depth of cover over the mesh and its resistance to corrosion. Ferrocement structures are made more durable by controlling the factors such as mortar composition, permeability, corrosion of reinforcement, attack of chemicals etc. Earlier workers have recommended galvanizing or use of an inhibitor admixture to prevent the mild steel network in ferrocement. This paper discusses the durability of polymer-modified ferrocement and flyash modified ferrocement with conventional ferrocement. In this work, polymer ferrocement was prepared with various polymer-cement ratios and flyash modified ferrocement were prepared with various replacement levels of cement. In order to find out the permeability of cement mortar, 12 numbers of cylinders of height 120mm and diameter 105mm were cast. The permeability of the cement mortar was determined experimentally with the help of 6 cell permeability apparatus. To study the corrosion performance of mesh reinforcement, 36 beams of size 300mm long, 50mm width and thickness 25mm were cast by varying the number of layers of mesh. In order to accelerate corrosion, impressed current voltage test was conducted and the corrosion process was monitored continuously. The corrosion performance in conventional ferrocement is compared with that of polymer ferrocement and flyash modified ferrocement.
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