Effect of Water Conditioning on Crack Sealant’s Cohesive Properties

The effect of water on crack sealant is a major cause of cohesive failure. Sealants shows different degradation rate when exposed to water depending on their chemical composition and environmental conditions. While there have been many studies on characterizing sealant performance in dry conditions, there has been no comprehensive experimental test to evaluate crack sealants water susceptibility based on a fundamental material property. This is when prior studies have shown that water leads to the deterioration of sealant polymeric structure and negatively impacts its bulk performance. This paper studies how conditioning crack sealant in water will progressively soften and deteriorate crack sealant’s bulk properties. Understanding interaction mechanisms between water and polymeric structure of sealant can help understand how mechanical and physiochemical properties of crack sealant change in humid areas with high annual precipitation. To do so, an experimental plan was developed to investigate the effect of water conditioning on crack sealant rheological properties utilizing Dynamic Shear Rheometer and Rotational Viscometer tests. The analysis of the experimental results showed that after water conditioning crack sealant became initially more elastic but at longer conditioning time it started to gradually loose its elasticity indicating water gradually penetrated into the sealant structure deteriorating its mechanical properties.