Mitigation of abrasion damage of offshore structural concrete

Abstract

The usage of concrete is wide and covers many construction applications. However, each application requires concrete with specific requirements as it is subjected to different types of loading actions. In a harsh environment, offshore structural concrete is subjected to abrasion action resulting from interacting with moving ice sheets. That interaction could cause considerable wear leading to possible damage, higher maintenance cost, and decreased life cycle. In this thesis, two approaches are introduced to limit this abrasion damage. The first one is through enhancing the ability of the concrete, used in such an environment, to resist such abrasion damage. This can be achieved by optimizing the concrete main composition (coarse to fine aggregate ratio (C/F), maximum aggregate size (Am)) and by adding different types of additions (supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), fibers, and nano particles). The second approach is through using a high abrasion-resistant external layer as a shield against ice-abrasion damage. It is believed that this study could lead to more effective usage of offshore concrete. This could lead to a far more cost-effective offshore structure, huge maintenance cost savings, and providing an incentive to extend construction for new offshore structures in harsher environmental regions which is highly demanded.