Durability of Concrete and Cement Composites







The purpose of this book is to bring together a series of reviews on topics of

current relevance to the durability of concrete and cement-based composites.

One might reasonably ask why such a book is now believed to be needed as

concrete and related materials have been used with outstanding success in major

construction projects for well over two thousand years. Indeed numerous ancient

concrete structures, such as the Pantheon in Rome, and masonry structures with

mortar joints, such as the Pont du Gard Aqueduct near Nõ Ãmes in southern France

(see Fig. 1.1), have survived to the present day in excellent states of preservation.

These and other examples of Roman construction works incorporating

hydraulic cements made from lime and volcanic earth (or similar vitrified

alumino-silicates, known collectively as pozzolanas, after Pozzuoli near Naples

where a natural source of such material exists) have shown remarkable durability

even where they have been exposed to damp, aggressive environments.

An impressive illustration was provided by Davey (1974) whose photograph of

part of a Roman breakwater that had been exposed to the sea near Naples for two

millennia (reproduced in Fig. 1.2), demonstrates that the mortar joints had

endured far more successfully than the now heavily eroded stone blocks which

they had been connecting.



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