Deposition and accumulation of marine aerosol and its penetration into concretes exposed to the marine atmospheric zone: an overview.

Marine aerosol, containing an enormous source of chloride, coupled with severe environmental conditions (e.g., high temperature, high relative humidity), poses a threat to the durability of concrete exposed to the marine atmospheric zone. The distribution of marine aerosol is spatial and temporal dependent, and thus, the deposition rate of airborne chlorides Ddep can vary a lot with geological and environmental factors. Chloride profile in concrete exposed to marine aerosol is a two-zone profile due to the wetting/drying action. The peak chloride concentration Cmax and depth of the convection zone Δx are largely affected by time, materials, environmental conditions which usually is less than 10 mm. Many models based on Fick’s law are developed to predict chloride transport in unsaturated concrete under wetting–drying cycles. However, the prediction of marine aerosol penetration into concrete is far from satisfactory, due to lack of enough experimental and theoretical researches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]