Investigations on the cementitious grouts containing supplementary cementitious materials

Concrete structures often exhibit distress during their service life due to one or more of the following causes: faulty design, use of substandard materials, poor construction, misuse or overloading. Of these, poor construction practices result in porous concrete which necessitates remedial and strengthening measures, if a structure is to meet the strength, serviceability and durability requirements, for which it has been originally designed. However, before strengthening the structure, the integrity of the concrete should be restored, which is often carried out through grouting using cement slurry, followed by grouting with epoxy or low viscous monomer. Grouting using cement slurry to fill up the voids in porous matrix of the concrete is the most simple and economical method, requiting less capital investment and skills. However, there are problems associated with cement grouting, such as shrinkage, stability of the grouts, etc. These problems associated with cement grouting can be solved by using cementitious grouts, i.e., grouts containing supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) such as fly ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) and silica fume (SF) as admixtures in cement grout. This paper gives the results of the investigation undertaken to evaluate the flow, strength and durability characteristics of the cementitious grouts. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.