• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.37-46
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• 2024

This study investigates the evolution of concrete damage due to chloride-induced steel corrosion through Impact-echo (IE) testing. Three reinforced concrete specimens, each measuring 1500 mm in length, 400 mm in width, and 200 mm in thickness, were fabricated using three concrete mixture proportions of blended cement types: ordinary Portland cement, ground granulated blast-furnace slag and fly ash. Steel corrosion in the concrete was accelerated by impressing a 0.5 A current following a 35-day cycle of wet-and-dry saturation in a 3% NaCl solution. Initial IE data collected during the saturation phase showed no significant changes, indicating that moisture had a minimal impact on IE signals and highlighting the slow progress of corrosion under natural conditions. Post-application of current, however, there was a noticeable decline in both IE peak frequency and the P-wave velocity in the concrete as the duration of the impressed current increased. Remarkably, progressive monitoring of IE proves highly effective in capturing the critical features of steel-corrosion induced concrete deterioration, such as the onset of internal damages and the rate of damage propagation. These results demonstrate the potential of progressive IE data monitoring to enhance the reliability of diagnosing and prognosticating the evolution of concrete damage in marine environment.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.285-297
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• 2021

Globally, nuclear-decommissioning facilities have been increased in number, and thereby hundreds of thousands of wastes, such as concrete, soil, and metal, have been generated. For this reason, there have been numerous efforts and researches on the development of technology for volume reduction and recycling of solid radioactive wastes, and this study reviewed and examined thoroughly such previous studies. The waste concrete powder is rehydrated by other processes such as grinding and sintering, and the processes rendered aluminate (C3A), C4AF, C3S, and ��-C2S, which are the significant compounds controlling the hydration reaction of concrete and the compressive strength of the solidified matrix. The review of the previous studies confirmed that waste concretes could be used as recycling cement, but there remain problems with the decreasing strength of solidified matrix due to mingling with aggregates. There have been further efforts to improve the performance of recycling concrete via mixing with reactive agents using industrial by-products, such as blast furnace slag and fly ash. As a result, the compressive strength of the solidified matrix was proved to be enhanced. On the contrary, there have been few kinds of researches on manufacturing recycled concretes using soil wastes. Illite and zeolite in soil waste show the high adsorption capacity on radioactive nuclides, and they can be recycled as solidification agents. If the soil wastes are recycled as much as possible, the volume of wastes generated from the decommissioning of nuclear power plants (NPPs) is not only significantly reduced, but collateral benefits also are received because radioactive wastes are safely disposed of by solidification agents made from such soil wastes. Thus, it is required to study the production of non-sintered cement using clay minerals in soil wastes. This paper reviewed related domestic and foreign researches to consider the sustainable recycling of concrete waste from NPPs as recycling cement and utilizing clay minerals in soil waste to produce unsintered cement.