Experimental study on ASR performance of concrete with nano-particles

Alkali-silica reaction (ASR) is a serious durability problem, resulting in significant maintenance and reconstruction cost of concrete infrastructure all over the world, so more and more attention has been attracted to it. This paper tends to discuss whether nano-SiO2 and nano-Fe2O3 can mitigate the concrete deterioration caused by ASR. The test results show that the concretes with nano-particles have lower expansion and higher sonic velocity. Therefore, it is an available method for concrete to mix with nano-particles to mitigate ASR and the optimum content of nano-SiO2 and nano-Fe2O3 in concrete is 2.0% and 1.0%, respectively. The mitigating mechanism is revealed through the effect of mixing water on the porosity.