Concrete-ice abrasion: Wear, coefficient of friction and ice consumption

Abstract

Concrete structures in the Arctic offshore are often exposed to drifting ice causing abrasion of concrete surfaces. This paper presents the results of a laboratory study of concrete-ice abrasion. The sawn concrete surfaces (two high-performance concrete mixes and one light weight mix of concrete) were exposed to sliding freshwater ice under 1 MPa pressure for 3 km of sliding distance. The effect of concrete compressive strength, ice consumption, and the coefficient of friction on abrasion was studied simultaneously. The results show a low abrasion of concrete, the maximum abrasion depth (0.35 mm) after 3 km of sliding test was found for the concrete samples with the lowest compressive strength. All tests showed a severeto-mild wear transition, with the maximum wear rate in the first sliding kilometre. The coefficient of friction was high when ice consumption was high due to ice spallation and pulverization, whereas the coefficient of friction was not directly correlated to the wear. The wear or consumption of the ice (abrasive) was in the order of 30000-100000 times that of concrete despite of its strength and stiffness 1-10 times lower than that of concrete.

Topography studies of concrete abraded with ice

“…An earlier part of this study found that the abrasion of high-performance concrete after 3 km of effective sliding distance was in the order of 0.1 mm, and the majority of the surface damage was observed during the first sliding kilometre [15]. This was interpreted as severe abrasion of concrete during the running-in process of sliding experiments from 0 to 1 kilometre, which was followed by mild wear (steady state) over the distance from 1 to 3 kilometres, where abrasion rates were much smaller [15]. The difference in abrasion rates could not be explained by the coefficient of friction (COF).…”

“…In these experiments, the concrete surface is abraded by fresh-water ice produced by unidirectional freezing. The density of the ice is 917.0 kg/m 3 , so its porosity is very low: 0.1 -0.0033% [15]. The method of ice production is described in detail in our previous paper [26].…”

“…Early studies of concrete-ice abrasion focused mainly on concrete and ice properties like temperature and ice pressure and less on the surface properties of concrete. It is known that concrete with higher compressive strength is less abraded [11,12,15].…”

Thermo-Mechanical Regime of the Greenland Ice Sheet and Erosion Potential of the Crystalline Bedrock

“…Empirical laws exist for the other three types of erosion (e.g., [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]). A mechanistic erosion law for valley glacier was proposed in Reference [27], to consider a combination of frictional abrasion and glacier quarrying.…”

Influence of a New Type of Graphene Oxide/Silane Composite Emulsion on the Permeability Resistance of Damaged Concrete

“…With the extension of the service time of the concrete, durability decreases, which leads to the destruction of the concrete structure [4,5]. Owing to the different environments in which concrete is used, there are many types of concrete damage, which can be roughly divided into the following: steel corrosion, freeze-thaw damage, chemical erosion, structural cracking [6,7], and abrasion damage (ground wear, erosion wear) [8][9][10]. Studies have shown that moisture has a direct or indirect effect on concrete damage.…”