First Winter Joint Damage in

Airfield Pavement – Offutt AFB,

NE
Toy Poole
September 23, 2008

US Army Corps
of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 Background
• Concrete placed summer and fall 2006
• Opened for traffic – early Dec 2006
• First winter - major damage to spalls
and corners
• Second Winter – little new damage –
some expansion of old damage
• USAF – What Happened!
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 Responsible Parties
• USAF – owner, managed design
– Alleged improper construction by USACE,
probably air entraining problems
• USACE – managed construction
– Alleged snowplow damage by USAF

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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 Concrete Mixture Proportions
Cement Ash Grove, Type IP – 564 lb/yd3
w/c 0.42
Fine aggregate Natural ~1200 lb/yd3
Coarse aggregate Limestone #67, #4 ~1800 lb/yd3
WRA MB Master Pave N, 9 oz/cwt
AEA MB Pave-Air 90, 12 oz/cwt
Air content 6.2%
56-day flex 750 psi
56-day compressive 6200 psi

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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 Major Form of Damage
First Winter

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 Shape of Sliver Spalls

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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 Damage – cont’d

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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 Objective
• Figure out what happened
• Recommend Revisions to Practice

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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 Construction Testing
• Aggregate
– ASTM C 295 – April, 2006
– ASTM C 1646 - 2004
• Cement – mill certificate, Type IP
• Air Content – QA data:
– Mean (range) = 5.2% (4.5 – 6.2%)
– Std (CV) = 0.4% (8%)
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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 Analysis of Field Concrete
• C 457 – air void parameters
• C 1646 – cycles of freezing and thawing
• D 5312 – freezing and thawing w/ deicer
• C 295 – aggregate mineralogy
• Monitoring – 2nd winter
• C 1074 – maturity at first freezing and
pavement opening
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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 ASTM C 1646 – Cycles of
Freezing and Thawing
140
Core 15
Core 16
120 Core 18
Core 22
Durability Factor, %

100 Core 23
Core 24
Core 26
80 Core 27
Core 28

60

40

20

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300

Cycles of Freezing & Thawing

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 Petrography – Gross Reaction

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 Petrography – Thin Sections

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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 Petrography – Thin Sections

Paste damage

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 Field Damage

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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 ASTM C 457 – Air Void
Parameters
Property Mean Std CV
Air Content 3.9% 1.6% 40%

Spacing Factor 0.25 mm 0.05 mm* 22%

Specific Surface 21 mm-1 6.3 mm-1 30%

*expect 0.02 mm from variation in test method

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 Distribution of Spacing Factor
8
Number of Samples in Each Category

mean = 0.25 mm
std dev = 0.05 mm
6
skewness = 1.65
kurtosis = 4.26
Spacing Factor of small
4
areas near C 1646 damage
2 ranged from ~0.4 to 0.6 mm
0
0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40

Spacing Factor Category, mm

Guidance: ACI 0.20 mm
CSA 0.23 (max 0.26 mm)
Spacing Factor – std C 457 samples

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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 Air Void Parameters, Small Zones
ecimen Total Spacing Specific notes
e, cm2 Air, % Factor, mm Surface, mm -1

7 1.8 0.25 32 Minor damage

7 2.5 0.28 26 Close to damage
7 6.3 0.25 19 Unexposed to F/ T
7 3.8 0.47 12 Modest damage
7 12.1 0.51 6 Major damage
7 4.5 0.49 10 Unexposed to F/ T
7 5.2 0.29 16 Unexposed to F/ T
7 5.4 0.39 11 Minor damage
7 5.6 0.52 9 Minor damage
15 4.7 0.58 9 Major damage
15 4.3 0.38 13 Major damage
25 3.8 0.16 33 Modest exterior damage
25 8.9 0.17 17 Modest exterior damage

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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 D 5312 – Deicer Effects
water KAc

19 cycles of freezing & thawing

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 Potassium Acetate Exposure
>19 F/T Cycles

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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 Offending Aggregate
[CAW3126.MDI] CMB080083 PopOutAgg(Paste)6/10/08 Poole
[CAW3061.MDI] 080059-21 aggr1 Toy

d=3.0334
60

d=2.9026
d=3.3456
SQR(Counts)

40

d=2.2829

d=1.8740
d=1.9104
d=2.0933
d=2.2016
d=2.4928

d=1.7958
d=2.0215

d=1.6030
d=3.8507

d=2.4114

d=1.5241
d=1.5495
d=1.6726

d=1.4725
d=1.6252
d=4.252

d=1.8554
d=3.7110

d=2.8430

d=1.5730
d=2.0715
d=2.5573

d=2.1284
20 d=3.2316

d=2.6854
d=4.499

0
01-072-1937> Calcite - CaCO 3

01-084-2066> Ankerite - Ca 1.01Mg0.45Fe0.54(CO3)2

01-085-0795> Quartz - SiO 2

00-006-0263> Muscovite-2M1 - KAl2(Si3Al)O10(OH,F)2

10 20 30 40 50 60
Two-Theta (deg)

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 Monitoring 2nd Winter

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 Possible Deicer Effect

Dec 07 Jun 08

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 Non-Random Aggregate Dist?

Dec 07 Jun 08
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 Snow Plow?

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 Typical Snowplow?

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 Maturity
5000

4000
Compressive Strength, psi

3000

2000

1000

0
0 5 10 15 20 25

Day (Oct 15 - Nov 6)

Day vs Cast Oct 17
Day vs Cast Oct 19

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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 Conclusions
• Air void spacing factor
– Slightly deficient on average
– Maybe more than slightly in specific
locations
• Non-durable coarse aggregate
• Deicing salt damage to paste &
aggregate

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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 Conclusions, Cont’d
• Interactions among all three individual
damage mechanisms?
• Damage revealed by service loads

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 Load

Saturation
zone

Freezing Isotherm

Joint seal

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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center
 Recommendations
• Increase target air content
• Use of the air void analyzer to verify
distribution of air voids
• Revise aggregate acceptance protocols
• Look into effects of deicing salts in more
detail

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of Engineers® Engineer Research and Development Center