Review of the laboratory methods applied to assess the reactivity of alkaline siliceous aggregates in concrete

The alkali-silica reaction is one of those reactions that cause the concrete destruction. The question of the alkali-aggregate reaction has not been fully explained as yet. This paper presents the outline of the reaction mechanism, and discusses the most common methods of investigating the reactivity of aggregates and of aggregate-cement mixtures. The ideal testing method should be fast, simple, precise and accurate. None of the accessible methods combine all those assumptions. The paper presents the evaluation of the applied methods.