Detachment of Shotcrete Linings due to Long Term Interaction with Ground

Water

Dr. Michael Romer *

ABSTRACT

Shotcrete in long term contact with ground water is often affected by leaching and simultaneously
by the formation of sulfate minerals, predominantly thaumasite. As a consequence thaumasite may
be a very common finding in a large number of underground constructions. Thereby it is important
to note that physical parameters like permeability or inhomogeneities are at least as important as
chemical parameters like the composition of the paste, pH-values and composition of the interacting
water.

The adhesion of shotcrete linings is affected by small amounts of interactions on the interface.
Severe conditions may therefore be related to ground water not considered as aggressive by current
standards.

Keywords
Shotcrete, tunnel, sulfate, degradation, thaumasite

* Head of the Laboratory for Concrete and Construction Chemistry at EMPA (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials
Testing and Research, CH-8600 Duebendorf, Switzerland: michael.romer@empa.ch, www.empa.ch/abt135)

1. INTRODUCTION

Cement based materials are generally characterized by durability qualities. Durability criteria
hereby are defined for laboratory tests and bulk properties of material samples. In contrast to these
circumstances situations in reality look quite different and are complicated by a number of factors.

First, the severity of concrete deterioration is related to the risk of failure on one hand and to the
costs of repair on the other, but service life of buildings is not related to the average quality of the
building materials used.

Second, the action of the environment is composed of many different physical and chemical
components which generally vary in their intensities over time and within short distance.

Third, the factor time is of crucial importance. Laboratory tests as a matter of fact have to accelerate
the deterioration processes, physical and chemical test conditions are intensified accordingly. The
resulting mechanism may therefore be different from the mechanisms during long time interaction.

In Switzerland shotcrete was used as tunnel lining for decades: on the one hand to protect the rock
surface from disintegration, on the other hand for the repair of old tunnel masonry. Shotcrete was

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often placed together with drainage elements to prevent water to drop from the tunnel ceiling as
well as the formation of ice in the tunnel opening. Shotcrete was applied with and without
reinforcement or by using steel fibers.

Shotcrete linings in tunnels are often in contact to percolating ground water. Typically the linings
are saturated with water only in few areas and water is penetrating the shotcrete locally. Already
small and often hidden amounts of concrete alteration at the interface to its support lead to
significant reduction of adhesion and corresponding risk of detachment.

2. INTERACTION OF GROUND WATER WITH SHOTCRETE LININGS

Elevated water saturation of shotcrete is often associated with pathways (joints, cracks) through the
tunnel lining. The formation of layers of secondary minerals on the surface of a shotcrete lining
could only be observed with relatively thin shotcrete and sodium sulfate hydrates (Figure 1).
Surface scaling of concrete due to the crystallization of salt near the surface is rare in tunnels
(maybe due to high levels of humidity). In most cases water is moving along local and permeable
inhomogeneities through the shotcrete lining. Low flows of water are accompanied by formation of
calcite and/or water soluble salts on the surface of the lining close to the intersection. Larger flows
of water are frequently escorted by biofilms on the shotcrete surface (Figure 2) and water soluble
salts may form in the lateral drying region of the wet concrete. Under biofilms the concrete surface
may show phenomena of cement paste dissolution and erosion due to acid attack.

Figure 1. Shotcrete lining in the service tunnel “St.
Gotthard” (upper part of the wall) showing a more
or less uniform cover with bright efflorescence.
Dark (wet) regions within the shotcrete mark
localities with water transport and evaporation
through the shotcrete [1].
Figure 2. “Gotschna” tunnel: ground water locally
penetrating the shotcrete lining. Depending on the
amount of running water large amounts of biomass
may form. The white mass in the center of the
picture represents a colony of sulfur bacteria.

In contrast to these surface phenomena the back side of underground constructions is much less
accessible for investigation but more prone to chemical interaction. Figure 3 is indicating
schematically locations within the cross section where concrete degradation due to interaction with
ground water takes place.

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 Fig. 8

Figure 3: Tunnel linings with locations of interaction of percolating groundwater with the shotcrete (marked
by stars) in two tunnel constructions: “Bauen” (road tunnel) and “Koblenz” (railway tunnel) [2].

Several tunnel constructions were examined because of problems with detaching shotcrete linings
(Two examples given in Figures 4 and 5). Samples of the shotcrete were investigated for alteration
in their microstructure and mineralogical composition respectively to elaborate the cause of loss of
adhesion. Water samples were analyzed in the laboratory as well.

Figure 4. Detachment of shotcrete (grey) from its
rock support (dark) in the “Bauen” tunnel. The
shotcrete lining had to be fixed locally with sheets
of plastic (brown) to prevent damage. The interface
is marked by a soft, mush like material (Figure 6).
Figure 5. Shotcrete lining with locally reduced
adhesion to the masonry support in the “Koblenz”
tunnel. The shotcrete is covered with soot from the
steam and diesel railway engines.

Shotcrete is mostly characterized by a diffuse layering due to the spraying procedure (Figure 7).
Alteration and interaction with percolating water produces complicated deterioration-textures and
chemical zonations along the contact to the shotcrete support and to a lesser extent along the layer
contacts within the concrete (schematically shown in Figure 3). On a microscopic profile starting in
the unchanged shotcrete towards the above mentioned contacts the alteration increases and 3
distinct zones can be distinguished (schematically shown in Figure 8): the zone of leached cement
paste followed by the lack of portlandite and the general grain size reduction of cementitious phases
give evidence for general dissolution processes. The corrosion zone is characterized by complete
dissolution of cement paste and more or less intensive formation of secondary phases resulting in a
highly porous and mechanically weak material (Figure 6). The transitions between the regions of
different state of alteration are quite sharp. A detailed description of the microscopic and chemical
aspects of zonations in deteriorated shotcrete (tunnel lining) is given in [3].

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Figure 6. Thin section close to the interface (arrow)
of the shotcrete lining in the “Bauen” tunnel. The
reddish veins to the top and to the left are composed
of a intense mixture of corroded cement paste and
secondary formed thaumasite (corrosion zone).
Darker regions of the picture represent completely
leached cement paste.
Figure 7. Sample of shotcrete lining of “Koblenz”
tunnel showing several distinct layers parallel to the
support (bottom). The layers are separated due to
irregular accumulations of sand, aggregate, paste and
air voids resulting from the application of the
shotcrete as well as due to more extensive leaching
along the more permeable layer interfaces.

In intensely deteriorated samples the growth of secondary minerals in small veins is superimposed
onto the chemical dissolution phenomena [4]. Cracks, veins and pore spaces are filled with very
fine and fibrous matter. In relation to the interaction of ground water in tunnel concrete the
formation of sulfate containing minerals was dominated by thaumasite. Ettringite on the other hand
could be detected as recrystallized needles in air voids surrounded by unaltered paste which is
interpreted as a ordinary consequence of high degrees of water saturation over longer periods of
time [5]. Thaumasite in contrast is associated with different kind of chemically altered or
deteriorated concrete [6].

The composition of water samples from the tunnels of “Bauen” and “Koblenz” indicate contents of
sulfate (SO4--) in the range of 50 to 300 mg/l, bicarbonate (HCO3-) 50 to 200 mg/l and low amounts
of magnesium: 5 to 15 mg/l. The water samples are dominated by sodium, chloride and calcium.

3. DISCUSSION

The stability of hydration products in hardened cement paste is depending on the chemical
composition of the pore solution which itself is chemically buffered by the latter [7, 8]. As a
consequence the interaction with an aqueous environment of different composition is not resulting
in a continuous alteration over distance but in the formation of a zonation pattern: regions with
different solid compositions show relatively sharp transitions between them. This gives evidence of
a moving boundary behavior in the opposite direction of the diffusion flux [9].

At a fixed point of consideration different corrosive processes follow each other because the
reactive front is moving with time. These processes include dissolution of cementitious phases,
transportation of dissolved chemical species and (re-)precipitation of secondary minerals. The water
flow through a crack is always leading to leaching of the crack walls (Figure 8). Based on the
observations in field samples the formation of thaumasite in shotcrete lining is strongly related to a
preceding or simultaneous leaching process. The sulfate content in ground water samples from
situations showing thaumasite formation in shotcrete was low and hardly aggressive corresponding
to current standards.

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The observed textural relationships indicate that chemical attack is triggered by permeable
inhomogeneities which serve as pathways for the percolating water. Similar results for shotcrete
linings are published by Haglia et al. [10] The zonations of leaching and thaumasite formation is
comparable to the findings of Sibbick et al. [11], whereas in our samples the coexistence of
thaumasite and portlandite was rarely detected.

limestone masonry
e te
sh otcr shotcrete:
unchanged shotcrete
leached cement paste
loss or portlandite, first
secondary phases
corrosion and secondary
mineral formations

transportation (advection)
interaction (diffusion)
app. 5 cm

Figure 8. Schematic presentation of a shotcrete lining with local pathways along internal layers and along the
interface leading to the evolution and the propagation of defined zones of alteration.

Extensive leaching of concrete in underground constructions is not only important for the
degradation of the building material itself, it may also cause the formation of precipitates (calcite) in
the drainage system. This process leads to the failure of the drainage and to a pressure increase
which itself will force the water to penetrate new pathways.

4. CONCLUSIONS

The observed textural relationships of deteriorated shotcrete linings in underground constructions

indicate that chemical attack is triggered by permeable inhomogeneities which serve as pathways
for the percolating water.

In all investigated tunnel structures with shotcrete in long term contact with ground water the
processes of leaching and the formation of sulfate minerals, predominantly thaumasite, have been
detected along internal pathways and along the interface of the lining. As a consequence thaumasite
may be a very common finding in a large number of underground constructions. The concentration
of sulfate in the ground water and due to the formation of thaumasite instead of ettringite the use of
cement with low contents of aluminum seem to be less important.

The adhesion of shotcrete linings is affected by small amounts of interactions on the interface. In
this regard not only water regarded as ”aggressive” corresponding to regulations has to be
considered but a wide range of chemical compositions, severe conditions may therefore be related
to ground water not considered as aggressive corresponding to current standards.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The projects have been funded by the Swiss Federal Roads Authority (ASTRA), by the Swiss
Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (EMPA) and by the Swiss Federal
Railways (SBB AG). I would also like to thank Lorenz Holzer, Marcel Pfiffner and Andreas
Leemann for contributing with field work, microscopical investigations and productive discussions.

REFERENCES
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Strassentunnels). Chimia, Neue Schweizerische Chemische Gesellschaft 52, pp.197-201 (1998).
[2] Romer, M., Holzer, L. and Pfiffner, M. Interaction of water with concrete: Deterioration Mechanisms,
CONSEC'01: Concrete Under Severe Conditions (eds. Banthia, N. et al.) pp.1075-1082 (Vancouver, BC,
Canada, 2001).
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Netherlands, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft, NL, 1999).
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[9] Samson, E., Marchand, J. and Beaudoin, J.J. Modeling the influence of chemical reactions on the mechanisms
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[10] Hagelia, P., Sibbick, R.G., Crammond, N.J., Grønhaug, A. and Larsen, C.K. ‘Thaumasite and subsequent
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