Long-term extrapolation of chloride ingress: An illustration of the feasibility and pitfalls of the square root law

Clinker substitution is limited by the availability of suitable supplementary cementitious materials. Therefore, flexible methods must be adopted by practitioners to assess lab performance that can be extrapolated to long-term field conditions. In this study, we assess the square root law for chloride ingress in cementitious materials using a single-species reactive transport model and new analysis of published experiments. Our results illustrate the suitability of the square root law as a first approximation extrapolation tool. As the square root law is defined by a diffusion-controlled process, this analysis opens the door to even quicker methods which are related to the effective diffusion coefficient.

Automated summary

This study assesses the square root law for chloride ingress in cementitious materials and demonstrates its suitability as an approximation tool for extrapolation. By using a single-species reactive transport model and analyzing published experiments, the analysis also introduces the possibility of quicker methods related to the effective diffusion coefficient.