The concrete modified by conductive mineral for electrode heating

Abstract

There are a lot of different methods of cold weather concreting. One of the weakly efficient methods of artificial concrete heating is electrode heating. The effectiveness of electrode concrete heating can be improved by means of conductive mineral addition to concrete mix that helps to support optimized resistivity of structure, reduce power costs and the period of development of strength in concrete. It is found that contraction of concrete mix modified by floured shungite in the quantity of 1% by mass of cement (5.18 ml) is lower than contraction of the initial unmodified concrete mix (8.15 ml) which shows its hydration processes slowing and demonstrates noneffect of shungite on concrete strength increase during electrode concrete heating. Concrete mix modifying by floured shungite helps to increase concrete temperature compared to initial mix by the value up to 8°C during the period of 0-20 hours of electrode heating, which leads to the structure's strength development rate increase. Electric resistance decrease of the modified concrete mix that is observable during this process shows us improvement of the effectiveness of electrode concrete heating with shungite.