Case studies : Concrete deteriorated by salt


Job site conditions:

At a factory in Montreal, it was by making openings in the concrete slab that the contractor realized that the reinforcement bars were virtually destroyed by corrosion and that the concrete was crumbling.

The engineer wanted to quickly assess the extent of the area that had been damaged by a salt water spill a few years ago.    


How can we know the extent of this damage quickly without taking a large number of concrete samples and waiting several days for the results from laboratories?

Our solution:

With aground-penetrating radar, the area of the slab where the spill had taken place,was surveyed about every 2 feet in both axis.

In addition to seeing the difference between the solid concrete and deteriorated concrete,we had observed that in some areas, the reinforcement bars had completely disappeared.

In just 4hours, the deteriorated area had been marked on the slab.