concrete protection in a storage building
can anyone recommend any special precautions to be taken for the concrete floor and walls in a storage building. the main storage material will be nitrate based fertilizers. i intend to use horizontally spanning precast concrete wall panels between steel columns for the retention of the fertilizer up to a retained height of 6.0m.
the floor slab is to be in-situ concrete slab on grade.
are any special additives etc required in the concrete
kieran
any takers???????????
kieran
ok...i'll take a shot at this one. consider either a specialty coating, maybe a 2-part epoxy, and/or a concrete additive. we have used sika products for many years in industrial settings (electric generating stations) to successfully protect concrete from chemical attack. the chemical attack here is from sulphur-based compounds but the chemistry for nitrogen-based compounds is probably similar.
take a look at
www.sikaconstruction.com
you may want to contact sika to discuss your situation & get a specific product recommendation, i have found their technical staff to be both knowledgeable & helpful.
thanks slideruleera will check it out
kieran
a couple of additional thoughts:
1. contact master builders, sonoborn and w. r. meadows, they all make a variety of concrete coatings for various enviorments.
2. a few years ago i was involved in the construction of a chemical storage facility. the majority of the products were fertilizers. in that instance, the only floor coating was a cure & seal coating to keep down the dust. however, the materials stored were all in some type of manufacturer's packaging: barrels, bags etc., no chemicals were stored directly in contact with the concrete. it sounds like your in a situation where the fertilizer will be stored in bulk, on the concrete floor.
this response may be a little too late. we have found that an additive called correchem improves concretes resistance to nitrate attack. it is marketed in the us by norchem (