Concrete petrography. A handbook of investigative techniques / Прикладная петрография. Руководство по методам исследования

The authors embarked on the preparation of this book some years ago without realising the magnitude of the task they had set themselves. The original idea stemmed from the realisation that although petrography is now widely acknowledged as a tool for the investigation of hardened concrete, there are no modern texts on the subject. Older books covering the general areas of cements, clinkers, concretes and related materials may have become outdated and most are long out of print. The authors, therefore, have had to gather information from a wide range of published and unpublished sources as well as drawing on their own research material and experience.

The petrological microscope has been used for many years by geologists seeking to understand the mineralogy and genesis of rocks, and excellent textbooks are available to assist the petrographer in these studies. However, the application of microscopy to the study of concretes and related materials has a much shorter history, and it is only in recent years that the petrological microscope and the value of petrological methods in the study of hardened cementitious materials have been recognised.

The authors have attempted to provide a well-referenced, modem, comprehensive and balanced review of concrete petrography. It is hoped that the book will be of value to the technologist and engineer who may have to address materials problems with concretes or similar materials and decide on the most effective means of investigation. The book is intended primarily to provide petrographers with both the background information and some of the specialist techniques necessary for the petrographic examination of cementitious materials. Although, in general terms, cements and concretes are composed of crystalline and amorphous mineral constituents with similar optical properties to the rock-forming mineral materials familiar to all petrographers, differences arising from the method of manufacture, the chemistry, the time-dependent factors and environmental effects make the petrographic study of these materials different both in technical detail and in philosophy of approach. <...>