Evaluation of the effectiveness of water glass to improve wear resistance in industrial floors

Duration:01.01.2009 - 01.07.2010

Industrial concrete floors must have a sufficiently high resistance to high mechanical stresses, which often occur in combination, e.g. grinding, rolling, impacting or beating, during their entire service life. In order to be able to ensure this property, hard mortar layers or hard material interspersions are usually applied to the concrete surface for the very severe wear stress XM3. In order to increase the wear resistance even further for the more moderate stresses XM1 and XM2, aqueous alkali silicates (water glass) have been applied to the still fresh or already hardened concrete surface in Germany for some years. The improving effect of water glass is based on a chemical reaction with the calcium hydroxide Ca(OH)2 present in the concrete, which causes microstructure compaction and is thus supposed to improve wear resistance. The aim of this research project was to investigate the effectiveness of two practical water glasses on different bases of action (sodium / sodium-potassium) for improving the wear resistance of industrial floors in comparison with concrete surfaces with and without a hard mortar layer under different installation scenarios.