STUDY OF LIGHT FLOATING CONCRETE IN OFFSHORE STRUCTURES WITH PARTIAL REPLACEMENT OF CEMENT BY LIMESTONE WASTE.
Floating structure, offshore concrete, low density, cement consumption, durability and limestone residue.
The study on concretes for the construction of floating structures began at the beginning of the last century. Due to its properties, its lower cost, greater production capacity, and greater durability, research on concretes in offshore structures, armed, or not, has been gaining international prominence in engineering, enabling discoveries and improvement of technologies for this purpose since then. Therefore, this work aimed to develop a Lightweight Floating Concrete (LFC) with density less than 1.0 g / cm³, which is capable of floating without the aid of any support, using fine quartz sand, expanded clay and expanded vermiculite, as light aggregates. The physical behavior was analyzed by water absorption tests by immersion, voids index, porosity, dry density, thermal conductivity and the mechanical behavior by tests of compressive strength, dynamic elasticity module, and indirect tension by diametrical compression (tensile strength), in addition to microstructural analysis (FRX and DRX) of the limestone residue. For comparison purposes, a mix of reference concrete was made without any substitution and, from it, partial replacement of cement was made in 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, and 25%, by limestone residue. Another important factor considered in the study of concrete for floating structures was the consumption of cement, which remained between 262.5 and 350 k / m³. All concretes showed a density of less than 1.0 g / cm³, with a reduction of up to 7.78% with the replacement of 25% of cement by limestone residue.