Assessing the durability of mortars tiles – A contribution for a prediction model

The service life prediction of any construction material is not an easy task. The researchers must choose between several different approaches each of which have disadvantages and limitations. While in real buildings, with in-use conditions, the material or component is subject to changeable actions in an environment where the great majority of the degradation agents are not controllable by man, in a laboratory, we can choose to expose the material to artificial and controlled conditions, using chambers for accelerated ageing. The main difficulty of this last type of test exists in the interpretation of the results, in what concerns their correspondence to real time. s paper, a discussion on this subject is presented based on two experimental research works, concerning the performance over time of two different types of industrial cement mortars exposed to accelerated ageing tests and also to natural ageing. The main advances and the main difficulties in implementing a service life prediction model will be identified. Finally, suitable strategies are discussed for the future development of this approach.