Modeling the alkali aggregate reaction expansion in concrete

Alkali aggregate reaction affects numerous civil engineering structures and causes irreversible expansion and cracking. This work aims at developing model to predict the potential expansion of concrete containing alkali-reactive aggregates. First, the paper presents the experimental results concerning the influence of particle size of an alkali-reactive aggregate on mortar expansion studied at 0.15-0.80 mm, 1.25-2.50 mm and 2.5-5.0 mm size fractions and gives data necessary for model development. Results show that no expansion was measured on the mortars using small particles (0.15-0.80 mm) while the particles (1.25-2.50 mm) gave the largest expansions. Finally, model is proposed to simulate the experimental results by studying correlations between the measured expansions and the size of aggregates and to calculate the thickness of the porous zone necessary to take again all the volume of the gel created by this chemical reaction.