Civil engineering structures that support our life today represent important social capital that must be passed down to future generations.

With momentum growing in recent years to better maintain this social capital, the early degradation of civil engineering structures through salt damage to concrete, alkali-aggregate reactions and neutralization has become a serious and urgent problem to address, including establishing preventive technologies.

ARONBULLCOAT developed by Toagosei is a super-flexible thick membrane type acrylic rubber surface coating that offers various unique properties for preventing the early degradation of civil engineering structures.

Acrylic rubber is the most flexible and durable of any rubber-type polymer material. ARONBULLCOAT leverages these characteristics to deliver superior, sustained, and long-term coating coverage of cracks that occur in concrete base material.

Acrylic rubber has an elaborate structure, which effectively shuts out water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, salt and other causes of early structural degradation. Combined with excellent crack coverage, this performance can be sustained for a long time to protect structures from early degradation.

Table 1 compares the characteristics and intended applications for maintaining concrete structures using the super-flexible thick membrane acrylic rubber surface coating of ARONBULLCOAT. The ARONBULLCOAT Z-I and Z-II methods are ideal for preventing concrete structure degradation from salt damage, alkali-aggregate reactions, neutralization and freeze damage, while the ARONBULLCOAT Z-III method is best suited for protecting against neutralization with little impact on appearance. The Z-I method (note: vinylon mesh specification) can also be used to prevent detachment, in addition to the performance noted above.

Although some staining can be seen on the acrylic rubber surface coating material after about 10 years, there is no marked defect in the coating, such as cracks, bubbling, or peeling.