Permeation properties of self-compacting concrete

Permeation properties, which include permeability, absorption, diffusivity etc., have been widely used to quantify durability characteristics of concrete. This paper presents an experimental study on permeation properties of a range of different self-compacting concrete (SCC) mixes in comparison with those of selected traditional vibrated reference (REF) concretes of the same strength grade. The SCC mixes with characteristic cube strength of 40 and 60 MPa were designed containing either additional powder as filler or containing no filler but using a viscosity agent. The results indicated that the SCC mixes had significantly lower oxygen permeability and sorptivity than the vibrated normal reference concretes of the same strength grades. The chloride diffusivity, however, appeared to be much dependent on the type of filler used; the SCC mixes containing no additional powder but using a viscosity agent were found to have considerably higher diffusivity than the reference mixes and the other SCCs.