Surfology: what does it mean for polymer concrete composites?

Surfology is a scientific concept including all surface properties of materials and its influence on adhesion. The study of adhesion of polymer concrete composites is on the border - interface - between materials science and engineering. Interface quality is clearly influenced by surface properties of materials. Quality is uneasy to define but, at the level of interface, it could integrate all what favours the contact between concrete and polymers, like shrinkage, rigidity, surface roughness, wettability, viscosity…etc. Surfology contributes to understand what will make the contact effective or not, and allow interactions of variable intensities between the materials. Different scales of observation – micro to macro - are needed to exactly represent what happens when materials are put into contact.
The objective of the paper is to analyse the effect of surface parameters (surfology) on polymer concrete composites. Influence of water content, roughness and type of material will be taken into account as factor influencing wettability and thermodynamic properties of surface. Viscosity and shear level of resinous materials will be considered in the same way. Engineering point of view will be taken into account through adhesion evaluation and correlated to surface material properties.