Polymer Impregnation of an Impervious Cementitious Composite Material

Abstract

AbstractWell compacted, silica fume-modified ordinary Portland cement pastes are well known for their low permeability. This quality can be maintained to temperatures slightly in excess of 200°C. Above this temperature, however, a continuous pore structure develops, making the material permeable and therefore unsuitable for high temperature applications (250–400°C) where vacuum integrity is necessary. To overcome this obstacle the permeability can be exploited for impregnating the concrete with an organic polymer. Organic polymers traditionally employed for impregnated concretes are not thermally stable enough to be used at high temperatures. Therefore, a high temperature-resistant organic resin has been studied for this application. The optimum conditions for impregnating this viscous resin into a high strength mortar have been investigated.