aa NALYSES ON ETROGRAPHIC Al EXPERIENCE FROM P He TCE AGGREGATE SEPARATED FROM rmarithaugen@sintefno, Ol8 skjolsvold; ola.skiolsvold@sir marithaugen@sintefnd, wi jansindgard@sintetne and Tone Ostnor, oe ‘SINTEF Civil and Environmental Engineering, ne,ostnor @sintefino, ea sim, Norway i and Concrete, Trondhel Marit Haugen; Cement 41, Wigum, Hanmun hf, Consulting Engineers, Grensavegur 1, IS-108 Reykjavik, Borge . f Iceland; wigum@honnun.is Abstract 'A Norwegian research project concerning alkali-ageregate reactivity (AAR) has been completed (Lindgird & Wigum (1). It included detailed examinations on concrete extracted from field structures both with and without documented AAR. In the project the main objective was to evaluate the critical limit forthe content of alkali reactive rocks assessed by the current Norwegian petrographic method. When concrete cores are examined with respect to cause and extent of damage and concrete composition, it is common intemationally to perform structure analysis (plan polished - and thin sections). With this method it is possible to roughly estimate the concrete composition, but the method is too uncertain for assessment of alkali reactivity (content of alkali reactive rocks), since Norwegian alkali reactive rocks typically are very fine grained and thus require classification by use of thin section microscopy performed by an experienced petrographer. Much effort was therefore paid to search for a method for separating the aggregate from concrete cores. A successful separation method would enable petrographic analysis as for virgin ‘material. The selected method (Grattan-Bellew, pers. comm. [2]) was as follows: fa ae fo ‘0 water-saturate the concrete, AfRer saturation the pesos Sr aaa Placed in liquid nitrogen and then shock heated: ieee ceeieae the cores were divided in 2-3 parts. eee the concrete, Aepended on the concret Pa et te quality. After sieving, and when the concrete The number of cycles nei sand and stone were washed in Operator has to be very careful, due to ‘careful to obtain clean parti washing process, the operator has to be cles,Separated sand and stone were prepared for petrographie analysis and point ‘ounted in thin sections (according to RILEM AAR-I [3)). Our impression after point ‘cunting of about 240 thin sections is that the separated and sieved and for stone also ed) aggregate particles are very clean, Based on experience, the operator was in iso able to recognize the origin of the aggregates. In these cases the tes exhibited in most cases almost identical results, see many cases al virgin and separated aggregat Figure 1. The petrographic analysis on separated material could also in several eases disclose wrong information about the type of aggregate used in the concrete structures Content of alkali reactive rocks Viegin materi (74) Separated material (%) Figure 1: The figure shows the correlation between petrographic analyses on separated aggregates and virgin material, respectively. ‘The conclusion is that the separation technique has shown to be technically and economically feasible, and has been found to be a very useful tool making the petrographer able to perform an accurate petrographic analysis of the aggregate in a concrete structure. This would not have been possible only by use of « traditionally structure analysis of the concrete cores, References 1 Lindgird, J, and Wigum, BJ (2003): Alkali aggregate reactions ~ Field experience, SINTEF Report No STF22 A02616, Trondheim, Norway (in Norwegian): pp 127 + appendices. Grattan-Bellew, PE (2000): Personal communication, RILEM/TC-ARP/02/09 (2002): RILEM petrographic method. RILEM AAR- 1 -Final Draft.