Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A Simplified Method for Determination of the Moisture Transfer Coefficient of Concrete

  • Research Paper
  • Published:
International Journal of Civil Engineering Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The moisture transfer coefficient (MTC) is an important parameter utilized in modeling of moisture ingress into concrete. Test methods for estimating the MTC are generally performed using time-consuming combined experimental–numerical procedures. This paper presents a simple and practical method for the determination of the MTC using only water absorption test results. In this regard, a comprehensive nomograph was constructed based on finite element (FE) analysis of moisture transfer which relates the MTC to the water absorption measurements of concrete specimens. To validate the proposed method, eight concrete mixtures were prepared and their MTCs were obtained using the proposed nomograph and water absorption measurements after 1 and 4 h of immersion. Using the estimated MTCs, a numerical model was applied to predict the water absorption. The subsequent water absorption data resulting from the FE model were compared with the laboratory test results at intervals of 8, 12, 24 and 72 h, with h standing for “hour”. An observed error level up to 5% confirmed the validity of the proposed method.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Wang L, Ueda T (2011) Mesoscale modeling of water penetration into concrete by capillary absorption. Ocean Eng 38(4):519–528

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Kameche ZA, Ghomari F, Choinska M, Khelidj A (2014) Assessment of liquid water and gas permeabilities of partially saturated ordinary concrete. Constr Build Mater 65(29):551–565

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. ASTM C1585-13 (2013) Standard test method for measurement of rate of absorption of water by hydraulic-cement concretes, American society for testing and materials, Philadelphia, USA

  4. BS 1881, Part 122 (2011) Testing concrete: method for determination of water absorption, London, BSI

  5. BS EN 12390-8 (2009) Testing hardened concrete: Depth of penetration of water under pressure, London, BSI

  6. CRD-C 48 (1992) Standard test method for water permeability of concrete. US Army Corps of Engineers

  7. Tasdemir C (2003) Combined effects of mineral admixtures and curing conditions on the sorptivity coefficient of concrete. Cem Concr Res 33(10):1637–1642

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Neithalath N (2006) Analysis of moisture transport in mortars and concrete using sorption-diffusion approach. ACI Mater J 103(3):209–217

    Google Scholar 

  9. Lanzón M, García-Ruiz PA (2009) Evaluation of capillary water absorption in rendering mortars made with powdered waterproofing additives. Constr Build Mater 23(10):3287–3291

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Castro J, Bentz D, Weiss J (2011) Effect of sample conditioning on the water absorption of concrete. Cement Concr Compos 33(8):805–813

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Basheer L, Cleland DJ (2011) Durability and water absorption properties of surface treated concretes. Mater Struct 44(5):957–967

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Samson E, Maleki K, Marchand J, Zhang T (2008) Determination of the water diffusivity of concrete using drying/absorption test results. J Test Eval 5(7):1–12

    Google Scholar 

  13. Oh BH, Cha SW (2004) Nonlinear analysis of temperature and moisture distributions in early-age concrete structures based on degree of hydration. ACI Mater J 100(5):361–370

    Google Scholar 

  14. Janz M (1997) Methods of measuring the moisture diffusivity at high moisture levels. University of Lund, Lund Institute of technology, Division of Building Materials, Report TVBM-3076

  15. Sosoro M, Reinhardt HW (1995) Thermal imaging of hazardous organic fluids in concrete. Mater Struct 28(9):526–533

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Nizovtsev MI, Stankus SV, Sterlyagov AN, Terekhov VI, Khairulin RA (2005) Experimental determination of the diffusitives of moisture in porous materials in capillary and sorption moistening. J Eng Phys Thermophys 78(1):68–74

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  17. Hanzic L, Kosec L, Anzel I (2010) Capillary absorption in concrete and the Lucas-Washburn equation. Cement Concr Compos 32(1):84–91

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Pel L, Hazrati K, Kopinga K, Marchand J (1998) Water absorption in mortar determined by NMR. Magn Reson Imaging 16(5–6):525–528

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Wolter B, Krus M (2005) Moisture measuring with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), electromagnetic aquametry. Springer, Berlin, pp 491–515

    Google Scholar 

  20. Shekarchi M, Debicki G, Billard Y, Coudert L (2003) Heat and mass transfer of high performance concrete for reactor containment under sever accident condition. Fire Technol 39(1):63–71

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Janz M (2002) Moisture diffusivities evaluated at high moisture levels from a series of water absorption tests. Mater Struct 35(3):141–148

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Kodikara J, Chakrabarti S (2005) Modeling of moisture loss in cementitiously stabilized pavement materials. Int J Geomech 5(4):295–303

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Sant G, Eberhardt A, Bentz A, Weiss J (2010) Influence of shrinkage-reducing admixtures on moisture absorption in cementitious materials at early ages. J Mater Civ Eng ASCE 22(3):277–286

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Ayano T, Wittmann FH (2002) Drying, moisture distribution, and shrinkage of cement-based materials. Mater Struct 35(3):134–140

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Luo R, Niu JL (2004) Determination of water vapor diffusion and partition coefficients in cement using one FLEC. Int J Heat Mass Transf 47(10–11):2061–2072

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Aquino W, Hawkins NM, David AL (2004) moisture distribution in partially enclosed concrete. ACI Mater J 101(4):259–265

    Google Scholar 

  27. Garbalinska H (2002) Measurement of the mass diffusivity in cement mortar: use of initial rates of water absorption. Int J Heat Mass Transf 45(6):1353–1357

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Nilsson LO (2002) Long-term moisture transport in high performance concrete. Mater Struct 35(10):641–649

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Anderberg A, Wadsö L (2008) Method for simultaneous determination of sorption isotherms and diffusivity of cement-based materials. Cem Concr Res 38(1):89–94

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Zaknoune A, Glouannec P, Salagnac P (2012) Estimation of moisture transport coefficients in porous materials using experimental drying kinetics. Int J Heat Mass Transf 48(2):205–215

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Tada S, Watanabe K (2005) Dynamic determination of sorption isotherm of cement based materials. Cem Concr Res 35(12):2271–2277

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Arambula E, Caro S, Masad E (2010) Experimental measurement and numerical simulation of water vapor diffusion through asphalt pavement materials. J Mater Civ Eng ASCE 22(6):588–598

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Evangelides C, Arampatzis G, Tzimopoulos C (2010) Estimation of soil moisture profile and diffusivity using simple laboratory procedures. Soil Sci 175(3):118–127

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Fanek H, Fava C, Huang EC (2012) Determination of effective diffusion coefficient of water in marshmallow from drying data using finite difference method. Int Food Res J 19(4):1351–1354

    Google Scholar 

  35. BS EN 15206 (2007) Hygrothermal performance of building components and building elements: Assessment of moisture transfer by numerical simulation. BSI, London

  36. Derluyn H, Derome D, Carmeliet J, Stora E, Barbarulo E (2012) Hysteretic moisture behavior of concrete: modeling and analysis. Cem Concr Res 42(10):1379–1388

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Nguyen TQ, Petkovic J, Dangla P, Baroghel-Bouny V (2008) Modelling of coupled ion and moisture transport in porous building materials. Constr Build Mater 22(11):2185–2195

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Baroghel-Bouny V, Thiéry M, Wang X (2011) Modelling of isothermal coupled moisture–ion transport in cementitious materials. Cem Concr Res 41(8):828–841

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Bazant ZP, Najjar LJ (1972) Nonlinear water diffusion in nonsaturated concrete. Mater Struct 5(25):3–20

    Google Scholar 

  40. Martin-Perez B, Pantazopoulou SJ, Thomas MDA (2001) Numerical solution of mass transport equations in concrete structures. Comput Struct 79(13):1251–1264

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Bazant ZP, Najjar LJ (1971) Drying of concrete as a nonlinear diffusion problem. Cem Concr Res 1(5):461–473

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Janssen H, Blocken B, Carmeliet J (2007) Conservative modelling of the moisture and heat transfer in building components under atmospheric excitation. Int J Heat Mass Transf 50(5–6):1128–1140

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  43. Conciatori D, Sadouki H, Brühwiler E (2008) Capillary suction and diffusion model for chloride ingress into concrete. Cem Concr Res 38(12):1401–1408

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Claisse PA, Eisayad BI, Shaaban IG (1997) Absorption and sorptivity of cover concrete. J Mater Civ Eng ASCE 9(3):105–110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Iqbal PO, Ishida T (2009) Modeling of chloride transport coupled with enhanced moisture conductivity in concrete exposed to marine environment. Cem Concr Res 39(4):329–339

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Martys N, Ferraris CF (1997) Capillary transport in mortar and concrete. Cem Concr Res 27(5):747–760

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Wang BX, Fang ZH (1988) Water absorption and measurement of the mass diffusivity in porous media. Int J Heat Mass Transf 31(2):251–257

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Akita H, Fujiwara T, Ozaka Y (1997) A practical procedure for the analysis of moisture transfer within concrete due to drying. Mag Concr Res 49(179):129–137

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Buchwald A (2000) Determination of the ion diffusion coefficient in moisture and salt loaded masonry materials by impedance spectroscopy. In: Proceedings of third international symposium, Vienna, p 475–482

  50. Hall C, Hoff WD (2002) Water transport in brick, stone, and concrete. Spon Press, London

    Book  Google Scholar 

  51. Prazak J, Tywoniak J, Peterka F, Slonc T (1990) Description of transport of liquid in porous media—a study based on neutron radiography data. Int J Heat Mass Transf 33(6):1105–1120

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Martin-Perez B (1999) Service life modelling of R.C. highway structures exposed to chlorides, Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, Toronto

  53. Kodikara J, Chakrabarti S (2005) Modeling of moisture diffusion in crushed basaltic rock stabilized with cementitious binders. J Mater Civ Eng ASCE 17(6):703–710

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Morgan RD (1988) Dry-mixed silica fume shotcrete in Western Canada. Concr Int 10(1):24–32

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  55. Roy SK, Northwood DO, Aldred JM (1995) Relative effectiveness of different admixtures to prevent water penetration in concrete. In: Proceedings of a conchem conference Brussels, Belgium, pp 451–459

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Construction Materials Institute (CMI), Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Tehran. The authors are grateful to Dr. Jafar Sobhani and Eng. Majid Nemati Chari for their contribution to the test program of this study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    Mehdi Nemati Chari & Mohammad Shekarchizadeh

Authors
  1. Mehdi Nemati Chari
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Mohammad Shekarchizadeh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mohammad Shekarchizadeh.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Nemati Chari, M., Shekarchizadeh, M. A Simplified Method for Determination of the Moisture Transfer Coefficient of Concrete. Int J Civ Eng 15, 1131–1142 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40999-017-0243-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40999-017-0243-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation