About the Project
The Next Generation of Concrete: Thermal project is designed to address the need for a testing apparatus that can accurately monitor thermal properties of Florida Concrete. During hydration of concrete, an exothermic reaction occurs between portland cement and water. Excessive heat generation from this hydration reaction can result in severe durability concerns, and loss of service-life. Additionally, commerically-available concrete calorimeters can be expensive and have poor accuracy. Thus, this project consists of not only constructing a semi-adiabatic calorimeter from off-the-shelf materials, but also analyzing results from two concrete calorimeters in order to provide the project sponsor with the best method to monitor the heat production of concrete.
Goals
The primary objective of this project is to develop a testing apparatus that is capable of accurately monitoring the thermal properties of concrete mixtures. Additional goals include evaluating the performance of two concrete calorimeters, and developing a threshold for exclusion of mass concrete mixtures, based on a developed threshold.
Sponsor
- Florida Department of Transportation