Measuring the Porosity and Pore structure of Construction materials

This course will begin by introducing you to pore sizes, the distribution of pores in the volume of a material and their significance with respect to the kind of performance exhibited. You will explore the techniques used to assess the extent of porosity available in the system. This will lead you into mercury intrusion porosimetry and the testing method for a typical mercury intrusion test. You will learn about the intrusion chamber assembly with a layout of the pressure chamber where the sample holder or container is kept. Also, you will gain an understanding of what happens in cementitious systems with minor changes to the composition.

Next, this course explains how the influence of binding materials on the resistivity of the concrete plays a role in enhancing the durability of special binder systems. You will be introduced to issues with measurement of resistivity, porosity calculation, as well as studies on concrete and equivalent circuit modelling. This will lead you into corrosion as an electrochemical process, the principles of electrochemistry and the comparison between alternating current versus direct current methods.

Finally, you will learn how to measure corrosion current, the advantages of alternating current over direct current and how to conduct a corrosion test using two-electrode systems. You will then be exposed validating electrochemical impedance spectroscopy data using different techniques and how equivalent circuit modelling is formulated. Also, you will learn how you can set up an EIS test using three electrodes, the different types of EIS curves and the different types of artefacts which are considered to be distortions of EIS curve. Start learning today!