Effects of cement type, water/cement ratio and cement content on sea water resistance of concrete

In this study, effects of cement type, cement content and water/cement (W/C) ratio level on the sea water resistance of concrete were investigated. Test samples were exposed to sea water by wetting–drying manner. Residual splitting tensile and compressive strength, and chloride penetration depths of specimens after exposure were determined. Besides, energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) analyses were performed on scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of selected mixtures. Test results indicate that blast furnace slag cement (SC) mixtures have considerably greater resistance to sea water than portland cement (PC) mixtures both from the point of mechanical properties and chloride penetration.