Dr. F. G. Thomas (Hon. Treasurer; Building Research Station) made the following points:-
(1) The Building Research Station was extremely interested and was actively studying the problems discussed by the authors. For over ten years the Scottish Laboratory of the BRS had conducted an investigation into the moisture movement of natural rock aggregates and its effect on the properties of concrete and on the behaviour of plain and reinforced concrete members. For most of that time their concern had been primarily with the durability of concrete, since the work was prompted initially by the experience of manufacturers with such products as kerbstones and other precast units. Their investigations had indicated that the weathering properties of a concrete were influenced by the difference between the shrinkage of the coarse aggregate and that of the mortar matrix; the greater this difference, the poorer the durability.
However, the solution to the problem of durability was not quite as simple as this. The matter had been discussed in a report by two of Dr. Thomas’s colleagues, Snowdon
and Edwards, in the Magazine of Concrete Research, No. 41, in July 1962.