Ming-hua Zhang ^a, Min-qiang Jiang ^b, Jian-kang Chen ^a,*
a Mechanics and Materials Science Research Center, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China
b State Key Laboratory of Nonlinear Mechanics (LNM), Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China

a b s t r a c t

Under the environment of seawater, durability of concrete materials is one of the chief
factors considered in the design of structures. The decrease of durability of structures is
induced by the evolution of micro-damage due to the erosion of chlorine and sulfate ions, which is characterized by the reduction of modulus, strength, and toughness of the material. In this paper, the variation of the flexural strength of cement mortar under sulfate erosion is investigated. The results obtained in present work indicate that the erosion time, concentration of sulfate solution, and water-to-cement ratio will ignificantly affect the flexural strength.

Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 4948–4957