The durability of mortar: consideration of interfacial transition zones to characterize and to model the physicals and chemicals mechanisms involved in mortar corrosion

In the framework of a study program aiming at anticipating the lifetime of concrete containers used for radioactive waste surface storage, the aim of this work is to model the physical and chemical processes of leaching of the mortars (cement paste + sand) by low ionized water at pH=8.5. This step is indispensable before the predicting of concrete durability (cement paste + sand + gravels) in which it can exist an initial microcrack. The mortar can be described as a three-phase system: the aggregates, the transition aureoles (aggregates-cement paste interfaces) and the cement matrix. The evolution of the very particular characteristics of the transition aureoles in terms of the degradation have been studied. The study has shown that the thickness of the degraded zone in the transition aureole is identical to those of the cement matrix. It has been shown too that the diffusion coefficient in the degraded transition aureole is similar to the diffusion coefficient in the degraded cement matrix. These observations can eventually be explained by a recombination of the texture and of the structure of the transition aureole during the degradation. This reorganization could lead to a decrease of the textural and structural differences which exist between the transition aureole and the cement matrix. As it has been supposed that the characteristics of the degraded zone govern the degradation kinetics, the thickness degraded in the transition aureole is then similar to those of the cement matrix. Mortar can then be considered as a two-phase system towards the degradation: the cement paste is assimilated to a pure paste but with different characteristics due to the presence of transition aureoles. In order to model the degradation of the mortar, the model used has been developed and validated by Adenot for pure cement pastes. At 300 years, the model anticipates that the thickness of the degraded zone in the mortar is of 2.9 cm, which is lightly higher than for the pure paste whose degraded thickness is of 2.5 cm. The difference after a so long period is very weak, and shows that the presence of transition aureoles is not so disastrous that we could have thought. (O.M.)