Curing comparison and performance investigation of polyurethane concrete with retarders

Polyurethane concrete has good flexible performance at the low-temperature and bonding performance, being gradually used on pavement and bridge decks in cold regions. However, the traditional polyurethane concrete will cure in a short time, which causes to the difficulty of transportation and construction. Therefore, a solution to adjust the curing process of polyurethane concrete by adding the retarders was presented. This study first investigated the curing behaviour of polyurethane concrete with various retarders, and recommended the selection of 1% phosphate ester. However, it is still not clear that whether adding the retarder affects the performance of polyurethane concrete. Therefore, the shrinkage test, frost resistance test, abrasion test, four-point bending fatigue test and UV aging test were conducted to investigate the service performance of polyurethane concrete with retarders under the effects of vehicle loading and environmental factors. The results show that the shrinkage strain of polyurethane concrete with 1% phosphate ester is significantly lower than that of polyurethane concrete without retarder. The frost resistance, abrasion resistance, fatigue resistance, and ultraviolet aging resistance performance of polyurethane concrete with retarders are comparable with traditional polyurethane concrete. Therefore, this kind of new polyurethane concrete could potentially be used in pavement and bridge decks.