Papers by Author: Fei Qiao

Abstract: The recent development of two types of environmental friendly cementitious materials, magnesium oxychloride cement and magnesium phosphate cement, at HKUST are presented. Both of them can develop high strength without heat treatment under elevated temperature, i.e. the bonding of these cementitious materials can be achieved at low temperature through chemical reaction, as opposed to fusion or sintering at high temperature. The preparation process of the two cements can not only save a lot of energy but also emit no carbon dioxide. For magnesium oxychloride cement, our research includes parametric study of the formulation, strength development, water resistance, and also identification of phase composition in the cement paste. Magnesium phosphate cement is mainly applied as rapid repair material in civil engineering. In this paper, the formulation, mechanical properties and performance in patch repair of mortar specimen including strength, bond ability to old concrete substrate, volume stability are studied.

Abstract: Magnesium phosphate cement (MPC) paste is prepared by mixing dead burned magnesia powder and potassium di-hydrogen phosphate with a proper proportion of water. The superior properties such as fast setting, high early strength, low shrinkage and good bonding makes MPC suitable for applications in rapid repair of infrastructures. However, the setting time of MPC is sometimes too fast, only taking a few minutes, which causes difficulties in manipulation. How to retard and control the setting time of MPC becomes a challenging topic in both scientific and engineering fields. It was found that the setting of MPC was greatly influenced by the reactivity of magnesia, which could be determined by a quick, accurate and convenient test method. Two kinds of magnesia, namely, high-reactivity magnesia and low-reactivity magnesia were blended in order to control the setting time of MPC. Effects of magnesia to phosphate molar ratio, blending ratio and borax addition on setting time, workability and mechanical properties of MPC cement paste were investigated. Finally, the suitable ranges of the different constitutes of MPC based repair materials with satisfied workability and strength development were proposed for the practical engineering applications.