The aim of this Master thesis is research of historical materials used in Rupnik's line. Rupnik's line was a defensive line along the border between Jugoslavija and Italy, built on the Jugoslavian's side prior to the second world war and was named after general Leon Rupnik. The Rupnik's line included various types of defence structures like bunkers and forts, which were ment as weapons storages, shelters for soldiers or as artillery spots. Because of strategic position structures of the Rupnik's line were usually built on hilltops. Structures of the Rupnik's line nowadays belong to Slovenian cultural heritage.
During the experimental work I chose four different structures of the Rupnik's line from the hilltops in the surrounding area of Žiri and took some concrete samples from each structure. Because buildings of the Rupnik's line were normally constructed with two concrete layers (outer and inner layer) the concrete samples were taken from both layers. Analytical work was focused on the evaluation of deterioration level of concrete after 80 years of its exposure to various weather conditions. Namely, although concrete is considered to be durable material and as such the most commonly used material in a construction, it is still prone to some structural and phase changes, which may in time worsen concrete physical properties.
All collected samples were analysed by means of optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction. From the obtained results I concluded that concretes used in the Rupnik’s line were made with the use of dolomite or calcite aggregates obtained from local quarries. Dolomite as an aggregate in concretes may with time undergo dedolomitisation reaction as a part of larger reaction mechanism – the so called alcali-aggregate-reaction (ACR). However, according to the obtained results dolomite and calcite aggregates of the concretes used in the Rupnik's line were surprisingly only modestly affected. Even though one might expected significant structural and phase changes in concretes after their exposure to various weather conditions for 80 years, it turned out that the degree of dedolomitization was much lower than expected. Furthermore, structural changes associated with the ACR reaction mechanism were much more evident within outer concrete layers compared to inner layers.
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