Concrete Penetrability Testing

The principal property influencing the durability of covercrete is its ability to transport fluids, gases and ions. This property is commonly designated ”penetrability” and can be described by physical laws of absorption, diffusion and heat-flow. Only few standard methods are available for measuring the penetrability, and some new ones are under research.
This paper presents the penetrability testing on three different concrete mixture proportions. Two types of concrete surface finishing and three different relative humidity curing conditions were used. The gas permeability and chloride-ion diffusion was tested for the same concrete mixture proportion design, surface finishing and curing initial surface absorption. The results are compared with the criteria of the CEB proposal for durable concrete. The results were used as the basis for the durability design and illustrated by example.