Design and Assessment of a Lightweight Polymer Concrete Utility Manhole

LUCIANO LEONARDI; TERESA PIQUÉ; TOMAS LEIZEROW; HUMBERTO BALZAMO; CELINA BERNAL; ANALIA VAZQUEZ; ELIANA AGALIOTIS

Advances in Materials Science and Engineering

Hindawi

Año: 2019

1687-8442

Polymer concrete is a composite using polymer instead of portland cement as a binder. It allows optimizing the tensile andcracking strength and the chemical resistance of a concrete structure. In this study, different formulations were assessed in order tooptimize a polymer concrete underground utility manhole with minimum weight. Formulations were based on an epoxy-aminesystem mixed with fine regular-weight aggregates and ultralightweight aggregates. -e objective was to design and assess anunderground utility structure with the epoxy chemical resistance, strength, and lightweight and to study whether the replacementof regular-weight aggregates by ultralightweight aggregates would contribute to improve the strength and reduce the structureweight. Two polymer concrete systems were designed from its formulation, and their mechanical performance was evaluatedexperimentally. A numerical model was developed for a polymer concrete underground utility structure made from the differentformulations. It was simplified as a box subjected to typical soil loads. -e size of the box is a standard one. Its minimum wallthickness is specified for sustaining the in-use service pressures obtained from numerical simulation. -e model predicted that theepoxy/regular-weight aggregate formulation could be used with a wall thickness significantly smaller than the formulation withultralightweight aggregates. In addition, the underground utility structure made with this formulation would weigh six times lessthan the same box made with a traditional portland cement concrete.