Construction and Building Murerials, Vol. 10, No. 5, pp.

375-319, 1996
Copyright 0 1996 CSIRO. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd
Printed in Great Britain
0950-0618/96 S15.00+0.00
09504618(95)ooo15-1
ELSEVIER

A performance specification for durable

concrete

D. W. S. Ho* and G. J. Chirgwint

* CSlRO Division of Building, Construction and Engineering, Highett, Victoria,

Australia
t Bridge Branch, Roads and Traffic Authority of NSW, Australia

Received 6 January 1995

The lack of durability of reinforced concrete structures often refers to the corrosion of the reinforc-
ing steel and the subsequent spalling of the cover concrete. With the use of water sorptivity in quan-
tifying the quality of concrete, this paper discusses the deficiencies in the common practice of
specifying concrete for reinforcement protection. The paper also demonstrates how water sorptiv-
itv can be used as a simole oerformance criterion for specifying durable concrete. Copyright Q 1996
CiIRO. Published by Elsevi’er Science Ltd.

Keywords: concrete; durability; specification

Concrete can deteriorate in many ways. Perhaps the
greatest concern nowadays is the corrosion of the re-
inforcing steel and the subsequent spalling of the cover
concrete. In Australia, the cost of repair of building
structures other than dwellings has been estimated in
1978 to be about $50 million per annum’, representing
10% of that expended on new buildings. This could be
translated to repair and maintenance costs in the order
of $800 million in today’s prices for buildings alone.
These costs could run into billions of dollars if one
takes into account other structures such as bridges,
sewerage pipes etc.
Many attempts have been made over the years to
improve the properties of concrete. Chemical admix-
tures have been developed to reduce the water demand
of a mix, its workability, the setting time, and ultimately
the ease of construction. Mineral admixtures such as fly
ash, granulated blast furnace slags and silica fume are
being incorporated in concrete as blended cements and
there is a general recognition by concrete technologists
that these admixtures when properly used enhance the
properties of concrete, particularly in marine environ-
ments. In Australia, there is a continued request by
some practising engineers for information relating to
the proper use or specification of these admixtures in
order to achieve the level of durability required. Of
great concern to the Roads and Transport Authority of
New South Wales (RTA) is premature deterioration of
some of the bridges2 constructed over the past 25 years.
The high cost of repair and relocating bridge crossing
points especially in urban areas favours the use of
highly durable structures. Questions or issues that are
often raised are:
What are the controlling parameters for durability?
And how can they be specified and, more import-
antly, enforced in practice?
If water to cement ratio is important, would cement
of different types and source provide a similar level
of durability for the same water-cement ratio?
If blended cements are appropriate for use in
aggressive environments (e.g. marine), would they
be equally suitable for less aggressive exposure, such
as inland areas with a temperate climate?
Can the quality and therefore the durability of
concrete be quantified?
What is the difference in concrete quality achieved
with different curing techniques?
What is the effect of prolonged or lack of curing on
the long-term performance of concrete? A typical
specification would state: ‘Concrete shall be cured
for at least seven days’. Usually, the specification or
code of practice would add: ‘Concrete shall be
covered . . . and be kept continually moist . . . consid-
eration will be given to the use of curing
compounds’. These specifications, whilst sounding
good in theory, do not provide an appropriate
contractual basis for action. It is difficult, if not
impossible, for the superintendent to check whether
or not curing has been ‘effectively’ carried out.
The above list of issues can go on for several pages.
Some of the questions raised may seem naive to the
experts, but what sounds good in theory may not neces-
sarily be practical, particularly in the area of curing.
The crucial issue is how to specify relevant durability
requirements that can be tested for conformance.
‘Construction reality’ cannot be over-emphasized!

375
 376 A performance specification for durable concrete: 0. W. S. Ho and G. J. Chirgwin

This paper makes no attempt to answer all the ques- and the depth is found to be related to the square root
tions raised, but points out the deficiencies in the of time, t, such as:
current practice of specification. Solutions such as
performance criteria are offered. S = d/(t)“.5

In the laboratory, the depths of water penetration were

Quality of concrete
For concrete durability, the properties of interest
depend on the service and exposure conditions, For
road pavements, one would be particularly interested in
the abrasion resistance and shrinkage of the concrete,
whereas for dams and high strength concrete columns
the heat of hydration would be a major consideration.
For concrete elements exposed to the atmosphere,
such as building exteriors, and the reinforcement corro-
sion aspect dealt with in this paper, the penetrability of
substances such as carbon dioxide, chloride ions,
oxygen and water are of prime importance3. It is gener-
ally recognized that this penetrability is controlled by
the pore structure of the cover concrete.
In this paper the quality of concrete is assessed by
water sorptivity, a property relating to the pore struc-
ture of concrete near the surface. Depending on the
exposure environment, other properties such as carbon-
ation, chloride ingress and oxygen diffusion could be
used additionally to assess concrete quality. The inclu-
sion of these properties is a topic for further discussion
and is beyond the scope of this paper.
The concept of water sorptivity, S, has been
presented previously4. It is a property describing the
‘rate’ of water penetration due to capillary action. It
was pointed out that this property related to both the
initiation phase of reinforcement corrosion, by affecting
the ingress of soluble aggressive materials (e.g. chlorides
from sea spray or sulphur dioxide from polluted atmos-
pheres), and the propagation phase, by providing
moisture and lowering the resistivity of the concrete.
Accordingly, good quality concrete is represented by
low values of water sorptivity. Similar approaches
based on water absorption have also been studied by
other works5-7.
During testing, the depth (not volume) of water pene-
tration, d, is noted visually by splitting the specimen,
measured at l/2, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 24 h.
Factors affecting water sorptivity
The influence of various factors on water sorptivity has
been reported 8- 12.In view of the limited space available
in this paper, only some examples are presented here to
demonstrate the importance of mix constituents and
curing on the quality of concrete.
The water-cement ratio of a mix is generally consid-
ered as one of the most important parameters affecting
concrete quality. However, due to the increasing use of
blended cements of various types, there has always been
a question among engineers as to whether different
types of cements would contribute to similar durability.
Confusion often exists when the two ratios, water/
Portland cement (W/C) and water/binder (W/B), are
used loosely. Binder is used in this paper to represent
the total mass of Portland cement and mineral
admixtures.
Results on three groups of mixes with 1, 7 and 28
days of standard moist curing are presented in Table 1.
Fly ash (FA), ground granulated blast furnace slags
(BFS) and silica fume (SF) are incorporated in some of
the group a, b and c mixes. Different sources of Type A
Normal Portland Cementsi were used in each group of
concrete. All mixes had a similar slump of about 80
mm. Plain concretes (i.e. without admixtures) are used
as controls.
As expected and indicated in Table 1, the quality of
concrete, as indicated by water sorptivity, is improved
with increased curing time. Results also indicated that
even with equal 28-d strength (F28) and W/B or W/C,
the quality of concrete varied depending on the source
and type of materials used.
There is a general belief that concrete incorporating
mineral admixtures requires longer curing compared
with plain concretes. This is valid provided the same
Portland cement is used in both mixes. However, as

Table 1 Water sorptivity of concretes with 1, 7 and 28 days of standard curing. Plain mixes with no admixtures, WR-mix with a water-reducing
agent, mixes with fly ash (FA), blast furnace slag (BFS) or silica fume (SF), mix with both water-reducing agent and fly ash (FW) or blast furnace
slag (SW).

Sorptivity (mm l?)

F28
Concrete WE W/B hIPa) Id 7d 28d

(a) Plain 0.69 _ 27.5 15 7 5

WR 0.66 26.0 8 6 3.5
FA 0.80 0.64 26.5 17 10 5.0
FW 0.80 0.64 26.0 14.5 7.5 3.0

(b) Plain 0.69 28 18.0 10 5.5

BFS 1.06 0.69 28 26.8 11 6.5
SW 1.06 0.69 28 20.5 7 4.5

(c) Plain 0.58 30 7.0 3 2

SF 0.83 0.78 30 12.0 4 2.5
 A performance specification for durable concrete: D. W. S. Ho and G. J. Chirgwin
indicated by the SF mix of group C, it has lower sorp-
tivity values compared with the plain concretes of both
groups a and b. These results indicate that, not only do
the admixtures have a large influence on concrete
quality, but also the source of the Portland cement
used. In order to achieve a low sorptivity value, a
proper combination of materials has to be selected.
Thus, one should not make general observations on the
use of mineral admixtures or any material without also
taking into account the effect of other mix constituents.
Similar findings on mixes incorporating fly ash were
also obtained when properties such as early strength
developmenti and pore structurei were discussed.
The influence of W/C, cement content and 28day
strength are further illustrated in Table 2. As indicated,
comparable concretes made using Portland cements
Cl and C2 had similar W/C ratios, Portland cement
contents and 28day strengths. Yet the sorptivity values
of one set of mixes were about 30% higher than those of
other corresponding mixes from the other set. This was
explained i6 by the low early strength development as
indicated by the 7- to 28-day strength ratios (F7/F28)
for mixes incorporating cement C2.
Effectiveness of curing techniques
The specification of concrete is further complicated by
the availability of different on-site curing techniques
and the general lack of understanding of their effective-
ness among practising engineers.
On-site curing techniques, for practical reasons,
generally rely on the prevention of moisture loss from
concrete by methods such as maintaining formwork in
place, covering with polyethylene sheet, or the applica-
tion of a curing compound. In a laboratory studyi7, it
was found that there was significant improvement in the
surface quality when cured with the above techniques to
three days, and some additional improvement when
curing was extended to seven days, but little or no
benefit arose for curing beyond this period. In other
words, there is no technical benefit of keeping concrete
behind formwork for more than seven days. Based on
water sorptivity measurements, it was found that the
surface quality achieved with the above on-site curing
procedures for seven days was generally equivalent to
about three days of standard curing. This was
explained l* by the ineffectiveness of curing when the
Table 2 Properties of plain concretes incorporating normal Portland
Cement content
Concrete w/c (kg m-‘)
Plain (Cl) 0.42 405
0.56 316
0.69 268
0.77 248
Plain (C2) 0.44 401
0.57 310
0.69 267
0.77 246
377
moisture content of the concrete fell below 100% RH.
These observations were based on data using 20 to 50
MPa graded concrete. For concrete with high strengths,
the trend may or may not be similar.
Water sorptivity as a performance criterion
The common practice for specifying concrete for
durable structures is by the 28-day compressive
strength, W/B and/or binder content together with
curing requirements. It is obvious from the discussion
earlier that no single parameter or a combination of
parameters can be used to assess the performance of
concrete.
One possible way to ensure durability is to specify
directly the required quality of concrete such as its resis-
tance to carbonation, chloride penetration, water sorp-
tivity and oxygen diffusion. Depending on the type of
structure and the service environment, more than one
criterion may need to be specified. Somerville*9 high-
lighted the potential of using water permeability as a
criterion in engineering designs. Otherszo~*’ went one
step further by proposing regular concrete permeability
testing alongside conventional strength testing. The use
of carbonation as a performance criterion has been
suggested**.
Water sorptivity was adopted by the RTA as a
performance criterion in their specification of concrete.
This property was chosen because, besides its relevance
to durability, it is simple to determine and without the
need for special moulds or equipment. Furthermore it
takes into account the requirements for curing.
However, one complication in the use of the perfor-
mance criterion is the necessity in specifying acceptable
quality levels for different exposure environments. In
view of this, Ho and Lewis23 recommended interim
limiting values of water sorptivity for building struc-
tures with a service life of around 50 years.
RTA approach
Bridges for the RTA require a service life of 100 years.
In order to obtain adequate data for the determination
of appropriate quality levels, the concept of water sorp-
tivity as an additional durability requirement went on
trial in 1990. Testing procedures for sorptivity were
further simplified by determining only the depth of
cements Cl and C2
F28
(MPa) F7lF28 Sorptivity (mm h-5
45 0.95 3.5
38 0.85 5.5
27 0.73 7.0
22 0.78 9.5
47 0.79 5.0
38 0.70 6.5
29 0.63 8.5
23 0.68 12.5
378 A performance specification
Table 3 B80 durability requirements for concrete
Exposure
Classification Environment
A (Dry climate, no industry
non-aggressive)
B1 (Industrial areas, inland)
B2 (Close to coast or
permanently in salt water)
C (Tidal/splash zone)
“Figures in brackets refer to high slag cement
water penetration after 24 h of wetting and is referred
to as the sorptivity penetration depth.
In the second edition of B80 Concrete Work for
Bridges25, the design of the curing regime has been
made part of the mix design and acceptance process.
The contractor shall propose only such curing regime as
it has confidence can and will be implemented for the
relevant concrete in the field. The specification gives
‘deemed to comply’ moist curing periods under reason-
able ambient conditions for conforming mix designs
(Table 3). The contractor is free to choose any curing
regime, provided that the tests demonstrate the perfor-
mance of the mix when cured in accordance with the
contractor’s design is satisfactory.
The acceptability of the mix and curing design is
determined by the resulting sorptivity and other
strength requirements. The contractor’s proposed mix
and curing design must be no weaker or more perme-
able than those obtained from the ‘deemed to comply’
mixes shown in Table 3.
Over the last few years, many data on sorptivity
penetration depth were generated from mixes that satis-
fied Table 3 requirements. From these data, maximum
sorptivity levels for various exposure classifications
have been determined and became an additional
durability requirement in the third edition (1994) of the
B80 document. The maximum sorptivity depths using
proposed curing regime are:
Exposure classification A Sorptivity depth
Bl
B2
C 11 mm
With the additional durability requirement on water
sorptivity, the incidence of damage due to reinforce-
ment corrosion is expected to be greatly reduced.
Structures with this additional requirement are being
monitored for their long-term performance. The RTA
recognizes that the use of sorptivity alone as a perfor-
mance test may not be adequate to ensure durability
under all situations, but considers it a step in the right
direction. Other criteria on chloride diffusion are being
assessed and are under consideration for use in marine
structures. The B80 is an on-going document which will
be modified from time to time as more research data
and field information become available. The ultimate
for durable concrete: D. W. S. Ho and G. J. Chirgwin
Minimum Minimum period of
binder content Maximum standard curing
(kg m-‘) W/B (days)
_ 0.56 7 (7)
320 0.56 7 (7)
390 0.46 7 (14)
450 0.40 14 (21)
goal is a ‘user friendly’ specification that can be used to
ensure maintenance-free structures over their design life.
Conclusion
The quality of concrete required for reinforcement
protection was assessed in terms of water sorptivity.
This property was found to vary depending on the
source and type of the cement used. The paper demon-
strated that concrete quality cannot be predicted by mix
design parameters such as strength and water to binder
(or Portland to cement) ratio due to the interactions of
mix constituents. Specifications were further compli-
cated by the different effectiveness of on-site curing
techniques.
Specification based on performance criterion was
suggested. This concept was adopted by the Roads and
Traffic Authority of New South Wales and has been on
trial since 1990. With data generated on water sorptiv-
ity over the past years, maximum sorptivity limits have
been set and formed part of the durability requirements
in the latest edition of their B80 document - Concrete
for Bridge Works. Furthermore, the design of the
curing regime has been made part of the mix design and
acceptance process.
References
1 Beresford, F.D. and Ho, D.W.S. Proc. Biennial Conjtirence of
Concrete Institute of Australia, Cunberra 1919
45 mm 2 Chirgwin, G.J. Seminar on How to Specijj and Produce Concrete
35 mm for Durable Structures, Concrete Institute of Australia,
17 mm Melbourne, 1994
Tuutti, K. Swedish Cement and Concrete Research Institute,
Stockholm, No. 4, 1982
Ho, D.W.S. and Lewis, R.K. Civil Eng. Trans. 1984 CE26(4), 306
Senbetta, E. and Scholer, C.F. Proc. Second Int. Conf&ence on
Durability of Building MuteriaO and Components, Maryland,
1981, p. 153 e
Hall, C. and Yau, M.H.R. Build. Environ. 1987, 22 (l), 77
Aldred, J.M. Fourth Internutional Conjtirence on Durubiliry oj
Building Muferials and Components, Singapore, 1987, p. 152
Ho, D.W.S. and Lewis, R.K. Dumb. Build. Mater. 1987, No. 4,
241
Ho. D.W.S. and Lewis, R.K. Durub. Build. Mater. 1987, No. 5, 1
Ho, D.W.S. and Lewis, R.K. Fourth Int. Conjerence on
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1987, p. 508
11 Ho, D.W.S., Hinczak, I., Conroy, J.J. and Lewis, R.K. American
Concrete Institute SP 91, 1986, 1463
12 Ho, D.W.S. and Lewis, R.K. Proc. CANMET/ACI International
Workshop on Silica Fume in Concrele, Wushington, D.C., 1991,
p. 145
 A performance specification for durable concrete: D. W. S. Ho and G. J. Chirgwin 379

13 AS 1315 SAA Portland Cement, Australian Standard, 1982
14 Ho, D.W.S. and Lewis, R.K. Proc. Concrefe 85 Conference,
Brisbane, Australia, 1985, p. 95
15 Sydney, 1990 and Cao, H.T. Proc. Onoda Pacific Conference,
Ho, D.W.S.
16 Ho, D.W.S. and Lewis, R.K. J. Cement Concr. Res. 1988, 18 (4)
584
17 Ho, D.W.S. and Lewis, R.K. Concr. Ausfralia, 1992, 18 (2) 3
18 Ho, D.W.S., Cui, Q.Y. and Ritchie, D.J. Cement Concr. Res.
1989, 19 (3) 457
19 Somerville, G. Struct. Eng. 1986, 654 (2), 60
20 Pritchard, B. Constr. Repairs Mainten. 1986, 2 (6), 6
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22 Lewis, R.K. and Ho, D.W.S. CIA News, 1989, 15 (4), 8
23 Ho, D.W.S. and Lewis, R.K. Proc. Concrete jbr the Nineties,
Leura, Australia, 1990, 10
24 Part B80 - Concrete for Bridgeworks, Ed. 1 Revision 0, Roads
and Traffic Authority of New South Wales, 1990, p. 49