• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
• /
• 1999.04a
• /
• pp.160-165
• /
• 1999

Osmotic pressure induced by semi-permeability of hardened cement pasts and cement mortar was studied, which was considered to be a cause of failure such as separation and blistering of floor coatings or wall coatings from the concrete substrate. The specimens with a water cement ratio of 45, 60 and 75% were installed between the solution of sodium chloride and distilled water. First, we measured water flux from distilled water to sodium chloride and the ion flux of Na+ and Cl- through the specimens. Then, we measured osmotic pressure induced by semi-permeability of the specimens using an apparatus which was specially developed for this study. It was made clear that hardened cement paste and cement mortar have properties of semipermeability, and the osmotic pressure is closely related to their water cement ratio. Finally, we calculated the osmotic pressure according to Staverman's equation, which was obtained for organic membranes, and tried to explain quantitatively the observed pressure.