Determining equivalent performance for frost durability of concrete containing different amounts of ground granulated blast furnace slag

This paper deals with the issues pertinent to the design of frost-resistant concretes in exposure class XF3 (high water saturation) when the concretes are made with cements containing ground granulated blast furnace slag (ggbs). The testing programme covered four series of non-air entrained concrete made with cements CEM I, CEM II/A-S, CEM II/B-S and CEM III/A containing 0%, 13%, 28% and 53% ggbs respectively, and two non-air entrained concrete series with the binder made from CEM I and 0 to 55% ggbs. The water-binder (w/b) ratio ranged from 0.25 to 0.55. Frost durability testing was performed using a modified ASTM C666A procedure to determine changes in mass (dm) and beam length (dL). The relationships occurring between the w/b ratio and ggbs content in the binder and the length change (dL) of the specimens were described using curvilinear regression functions, through the analysis of artificial neural networks. Slag-content-dependent critical values of the w/b ratio were determined taking the length change dL = 1.3 mm to be the criterion for the resistance to internal cracking. In the authors’ view, this approach can be a good method for checking equivalent performance of concretes made with cements containing mineral additions.