Capillary transport of water in cracked and non-cracked UHPFRC specimens

Ana Mafalda Matos*, Sandra Nunes, José L. Barroso Aguiar

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The primary goal of the present paper is to investigate the influence of cracking on water transport by capillary suction of UHPFRC. Prismatic specimens were firstly loaded under four-point bending up to specific crack open displacement (COD). Target COD, under loading, was varied between 200 and 400 μm, in steps of 50 μm. After unloading, a COD recovery was observed with residual COD ranging between 116-334 μm and 75-248 μm for UHPFRC-1.5% and UHPFRC-3.0% specimens, respectively. The crack pattern created was characterised (number of cracks and crack width) before capillarity testing. Sorptivity results of cracked UHPFRC-1.5% and UHPFRC-3% specimens remained in the range of 0.024 to 0.044 mg/(mm2.min0.5), which are about 2 to 4 times higher than the sorptivity results of non-cracked UHPFRC specimens. However, the maximum sorptivity observed on cracked UHPFRC is relatively low as compared to typical sorptivity results found in good quality conventional concrete or engineered cementitious composites (ECC).

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)244-259
Number of pages16
JournalJournal of Advanced Concrete Technology
Volume17
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2019
Externally publishedYes

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