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MICROSTRUCTURE OF INTERFACE BETWEEN REINFORCEMENT SPACER AND

CONCRETE INCORPORATING SUPPLEMENTARY CEMENTITIOUS MATERIALS

Conference Paper · May 2017

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Fachruddiansyah Muslim Hong S. Wong

Universitas Jambi Imperial College London
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Imperial College London
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 MICROSTRUCTURE OF INTERFACE BETWEEN REINFORCEMENT
SPACER AND CONCRETE INCORPORATING SUPPLEMENTARY
CEMENTITIOUS MATERIALS
F. Muslim, H.S. Wong, N.R. Buenfeld
Concrete Durability Group, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College
London, UK

INTRODUCTION
Reinforcement spacers are generally made of cementitious material, plastic or steel. They are used to
support reinforcing steel and to ensure that the required concrete cover thickness is achieved to protect
embedded steel from corrosion. As such, they have a crucial role in the performance of concrete structures.
Design standards and codes of practice for concrete structures require a spacer to be located at every metre (or
less) along the length of reinforcing bars to ensure the bars remain in place during concreting. Therefore, a
typical concrete structure contains many spacers [1] .
Despite the obvious importance of spacers, up to now, very few fundamental studies have been done on the
effect of spacer on concrete microstructure and long-term performance. The first study on the microstructure
of spacer-concrete interface using backscattered electron (BSE) microscopy was reported by Alzyoud et. al
[2]. The study revealed that the presence of spacer produces a micro-cracked and highly porous interface,
which accelerates ingress of gasses and fluids through the concrete cover. However, the work only focused on
concretes containing Portland cement CEM I as the main binder.
The incorporation of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) such as silica fume (SF), fly ash (FA)
and ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS) as partial replacement of Portland cement in concrete is an
effective means of improving the performance, durability and sustainability of concrete. It is well-known that
SCMs can induce filler and pozzolanic effects that change the hydrate assemblage, refine pore size distribution
and densify microstructure of concrete. However, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have been carried
out to date to investigate whether this could improve the microstructure of the spacer-concrete interface.
This paper presents a preliminary study on the microstructure of interface between various spacer types and
concrete containing SCMs. Laser scanning confocal microscope (LSCM) and image analysis will be used to
characterise the porosity gradient at the spacer-concrete interface. This work is part of a larger project that
aims to enhance the understanding of the effect of spacers on the performance of concrete structures.

EXPERIMENTAL
Materials and mix proportions
Concrete samples at water-binder ratio of 0.40 containing 8% silica fume (SF), 30% fly ash (FA) or 60%
ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS) by mass of cement with total aggregate content of 70% and sand
to total aggregate content ratio of 0.4 were prepared. The Portland cement used complies with BS EN 197-
1:2011 CEM I. The aggregates were Thames Valley gravel (<10 mm) and sand (<5 mm) complying with the
BS 882 medium grading. Mix proportions for all samples calculated using absolute volume method are shown
in Table 1.

Table 1. Mix proportions

CEM I Water SCM Sand Coarse aggregate
Mix ID
(kg/m3) (kg/m3) (kg/m3) (kg/m3) (kg/m3)
C1: CEM I + 8% SF 380 165 33 707 1061
C2: CEM I + 30% FA 289 165 124 707 1061
C3: CEM I + 60% GGBS 165 165 248 707 1061

Cement, SCM, and aggregates were firstly dry mixed for 30 s in a 30-liter capacity pan mixer. Water was
then added and mixed for a further 3 min. Samples were cast in cylindrical steel moulds of 100 mm diameter
 50 mm thickness, compacted in two equal-depth layers on a vibrating table until no air bubbles escaped the
surface. Prior to casting, spacers (Fig. 1a) were placed and secured in the middle of the mould as shown in Fig.
1(b). The compacted samples were covered with polyethylene sheet and wet hessian at room temperature for
24 h, then demoulded and cured for 3 and 120 days in a fog room (100% RH).
 Concrete Spacer Concrete

Plastic
spacer

(a) (b)
Fig. 1: Plastic and cementitious spacers used in this study (a) and cross-section of samples containing
spacers (b)
Sample preparation for microscopy
In order to analyse the microstructure of the spacer-concrete interface, samples were prepared following
the method described in Wong and Buenfeld [3] which is summarised here. Samples with cementitious spacers
were first sectioned using a diamond saw to extract a 40  20  8 mm block from the centre that contains the
spacer and concrete (Fig. 2). The blocks were then gently dried in an oven at 40°C until constant mass was
achieved. This was followed by vacuum impregnation with epoxy resin containing a fluorescein dye and
pressurised at 2.5 bar for two hours to ensure full impregnation. Samples with plastic spacers, on the other
hand, were first epoxy-impregnated prior to sectioning to protect the interface between plastic spacer and
concrete from damage during the cutting process. Finally, the impregnated samples were cured at room
temperature for 2 days to allow proper hardening of the epoxy prior to dry grinding and polishing at
successfully finer grades (68 µm, 30 µm, 18 µm, 14 µm, 9 µm, 6 µm, 3 µm, 1 µm, and 0.25 µm). A Kemet oil
was used as lubricant for polishing. Acetone was used to clean the blocks during grinding and polishing. The
blocks were regularly checked with an Olympus BX51 petrographic microscope in normal and ultraviolet light
mode to ensure that the sample was well-polished.

Cut line Spacer-concrete

interface
C
Concrete
Spacer (C) S C
(S) S

(a) (b) (c)

Fig. 2: Schematic of the extraction of a block sample for imaging. Drawing not to scale.

Laser scanning confocal microscopy

Fluorescence images of the spacer-concrete interface were captured with a Leica TCS SP5 laser scanning
confocal microscopy (LSCM) with HCX PL APO 40x (NA 1.25) oil immersion objective. Excitation of the
fluorescein was performed using an argon laser (488 nm) at 15% intensity and the fluorescence emissions
between 500 and 600 nm were collected with photomultiplier tube detector adjusted for optimum brightness
and contrast. The pinhole size was maintained at 1 Airy Unit and two-times line averaging was applied to
reduce noise. Each image was digitised to 2048 x 2048 pixels at pixel spacing of 0.189 µm, giving a field of
view of 387.5 x 387.5 µm. Twenty images were collected per sample. Details of the imaging are given in Yio
et al. [4].

Quantitative image analysis

Euclidean Distance Mapping (EDM) approach [5] was applied to measure the porosity gradient from the
spacer boundary. Fig. 4 shows an example application of the EDM method on a LSCM image of the paste
region adjacent to a cementitious spacer. First, the spacer boundary was carefully traced and segmented using
ImageJ/FIJI software. The pores and any cracks were then segmented using a moment-preserving method
proposed by W.-H. Tsai [6]. Finally, the porosity distribution was measured by normalising the brightness
histogram of the pore EDM to the paste EDM and converting the grey values to actual distances by factoring
with the pixel spacing value (0.189 µm/pixel).

a) Confocal image of spacer- b) Pore binary mask c) Spacer binary mask

concrete interface
100

Detectable porosity (%)

90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Distance from spacer (µm)

d) EDM of paste from the spacer e) Distance map of pores from f) Porosity distribution from spacer
boundary the spacer boundary

Fig. 3: Measuring porosity gradient at spacer-concrete interface using EDM [5].

Sample is CEM I+30%FA-Cementitious Spacer-3d.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The distribution of detectable porosity of concrete containing different SCMs and spacer types after curing
for 3 and 120 days, measured up to 45 µ𝑚 from the spacer-concrete interface, is presented in Fig. 4. Results
are average of 20 images and expressed as area percentage of the cement paste.

100 8%SF-3d 100 30%FA-3d

30%FA-3d 60%GGBS-3d
90 90
Detectable porosity (%)

Detectable porosity (%)

60%GGBS-3d 30%FA-120d
80 80 60%GGBS-120d
70 70
60 60
50 50
40 40
30 30
20 20
10 10
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Distance from interface (µm) Distance from interface (µm)

(a) Cementitious spacer (b) Plastic spacer

 Plastic spacer Plastic spacer

Aggregate
Concrete
Microcrack
Microcrack
Concrete

Aggregate
Aggregate
(c) (d)

Fig. 4: Effect of cementitious (a) and plastic (b) spacers on the average porosity distribution from the
spacer-concrete interface. Fig (c) and (d) show examples of LSCM images of plastic spacer-concrete
interface (Samples are CEM I+30%FA-3d and CEM I+60%GGBS-3d respectively).

The results clearly show a general trend of high porosity at the spacer-concrete interface, decreasing with
increasing distance from the spacer boundary. This was observed for all spacer types, SCMs and curing ages.
Therefore, the presence of spacer disturbs the microstructure of the surrounding concrete and this effect
remained even in very well cured concretes containing SCMs. The increased porosity is caused primarily by
higher initial water content due to poor particle packing and bleeding along spacer surface [2]. Samples
containing silica fume showed the lowest porosity, which is consistent with the understanding that silica fume
has greater filler effect and pozzolanic reactivity compared to slag and fly ash. Samples with fly ash and slag
gave about the same porosity gradient for both spacer types used. It is interesting to note that the porosity at
the plastic spacer-concrete interface is greater than that of the cementitious spacer-concrete interface by a
factor of ~1.5. This is due to poor bonding between plastic and concrete, causing microcracking as shown in
Fig. 4(c). The width of this bond crack increases with curing age, presumably due to shrinkage of the concrete.

CONCLUSION
Laser scanning confocal microscopy and image analysis using Euclidean distance mapping was applied to
investigate the microstructural gradients at the interface of cementitious and plastic spacers with surrounding
concrete. Results showed that the spacer-concrete interface has higher porosity compared to the concrete
farther away from the spacer. This occurred despite the fact that the concrete contained partial replacement of
CEM I with SCMs such as silica fume, fly ash, and ground granulated blast-furnace slag.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
F. Muslim gratefully acknowledge the financial support for her study provided by the Indonesian
Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP). We thank Mr. Andrew Morris for his help with the laboratory work.

REFERENCES
1. BSI, BS 7973-1: Spacers and chairs for steel reinforcement and their specification in Part 1: Product
performance requirements. 2001.
2. Alzyoud, S., H.S. Wong, and N.R. Buenfeld, Influence of reinforcement spacers on mass transport
properties and durability of concrete structures. Cement and Concrete Research, 2016. 87: p. 31-44.
3. Wong, H.S. and N.R. Buenfeld, Patch microstructure in cement-based materials: Fact or artefact? Cement
and Concrete Research, 2006. 36(5): p. 990-997.
4. Yio, M.H.N., et al., 3D imaging of cement-based materials at submicron resolution by combining laser
scanning confocal microscopy with serial sectioning. Journal of Microscopy, 2014. 258(2 2015): p.
151-169.
5. Wong, H.S. and N.R. Buenfeld, Euclidean Distance Mapping for computing microstructural gradients at
interfaces in composite materials. Cement and Concrete Research, 2006. 36(6): p. 1091-1097.
6. Tsai, W.-H., Moment-preserving thresholding: A new approach. . Computer Vision, Graphics, and Image
Processing, 1985. 29: p. 377-393.

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