Chloride diffusion in concrete associated with single, dual and multi cation types

Currently, most of the investigations on chloride diffusion were based on the experiments and simulations concerning single cation type chlorides. Chloride diffusion associated with dual or multi cation types was rarely studied. In this paper, several groups of diffusion experiments are conducted using chloride solutions containing single, dual and multi cation types. A multi-ionic model is also proposed to simulate the chloride diffusion behavior in the experimental tests. The MATLAB software is used to numerically solve the nonlinear PDEs in the multi-ionic model. The experimental and simulated results show that the chloride diffusion behavior associated with different cation types is significantly different. When the single cation type chlorides are adopted, it is found that the bound rates of chloride ions combined with divalent cations are greater than those combined with monovalent cations. When the dual/multi cation type chlorides are adopted, the chloride bound rates increase with the $Ca²⁺/Mg²⁺$ percentage in the source solutions. This evidence indicates that the divalent cations would markedly enhance the chloride binding capacity and reduce the chloride diffusivity. Moreover, on the basis of the analysis, it is also found that the complicated cation types in source solutions are beneficial to reducing the chloride diffusivity.