Influence of sand drying and mixing sequence on the performance of mortars with fine recycled concrete aggregates

Fine recycled concrete aggregates (fRCA, 0–4 mm) are produced from demolished concrete structures and consist of natural aggregates and old cement mortar. The presence of old cement mortar has detrimental effect on the fresh properties and strength of new concrete. This study aims to investigate the working mechanism and effectiveness of...

X-Ray Micro Tomography of Water Absorption by Superabsorbent Polymers in Mortar

Superabsorbent Polymers (SAP) have been recently subject of investigation as smart admixtures for cement-based materials. The properties of these polymers enable their use for internal curing, increasing freeze/thaw resistance, boosting autogenous self-healing and providing a crack self-sealing effect in cementitious composites. Except for...

Fundamental investigation on the frost resistance of mortar with microencapsulated phase change materials

Recent studies have shown that concrete containing Phase Change Materials (PCM) with low transition temperatures may reduce the number of freeze/thaw cycles suffered by the cementitious composite in temperate climates. Nevertheless, the positive influence of such admixtures on the frost resistance of cement-based materials has not been...

Experimentally validated meso-scale fracture modelling of mortar using output from micromechanical models

This paper presents a validation process of the developed multi-scale modelling scheme on mortar composites. Special attention was paid to make the material structure of real and virtual mortar specimens comparable at the meso-scale. The input mechanical parameters of cement paste (both bulk cement paste and interfacial transition zone) at the...

Bio-Based self-healing mortar

This paper investigates the effects of alkaliphilic spore-forming bacteria of the genus Bacillus on the compressive strength of the mortar cube and the healing capacity of the bacteria as healing agent on mortar containing crack. The experiments were carried out using cube test, stereomicroscopy and environmental scanning electron microscopy ...

Modeling framework for fracture in multiscale cement-based material structures

Multiscale modeling for cement-based materials, such as concrete, is a relatively young subject, but there are already a number of different approaches to study different aspects of these classical materials. In this paper, the parameter-passing multiscale modeling scheme is established and applied to address the multiscale modeling problem...