Service Life of Pre-Tensioned Concrete Structures in a Chloride Environment on the Example of an Aluminium Foundry Building

This paper describes a study of the chloride content in the concrete lagging of prestressed concrete elements of the roof structure of an aluminium foundry building. Sources of chloride pollution in industrial facilities are discussed. Methods for collecting dust deposited on the structure and sampling concrete for chloride concentration testing are presented in detail. The test methods used and the apparatus used to assess the chloride content at the thickness of concrete reinforcement lagging are presented. Investigations of the chloride content in the concrete of the reinforcement cover showed a very high concentration of chloride in the near-surface layer, depending on the location of the element in relation to the source of chloride emission into the environment. In contrast, the concrete of the deeper layers of the lagging contained very small amounts of Cl− chlorides. The results of the chloride content of the lagging concrete were plotted against the distance from the surface of the specimen and approximated by the function C(x,t) based on Fick’s second law and its solution. A satisfactory fit of the course of this function to the experimental results was obtained. Based on the obtained C(x,t) function, the durability of the main structural components of an aluminium foundry industrial hall operating in a chloride environment was estimated.