Application of additive manufacturing in vascular self-healing cementitious materials

Self-healing concrete has great potential to enhance the durability of concrete structures without significantly increasing the initial costs. Among the self-healing approaches, vascular self-healing cementitious composite is capable of supplying healing agents to the cracked region in a continuous way or multiple times. However, the use of...

Utilization of mswi bottom ash as a mineral resource for low-carbon construction materials: Quality-upgrade treatments, mix design method, and microstructure analysis

In recent years, considerable attention has been given to the utilization of municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) bottom ash as a mineral resource for construction materials. MSWI bottom ash is the primary residue discharged after incinerating municipal solid waste. The generation of MSWI bottom ash is increasing dramatically with the wide...

Experimental and numerical study of fatigue behaviour at the microscale of cementitious materials

Ageing is an inherent feature of cementitious materials. Ageing of material leads to gradual loss of the function of a concrete structure with increasing likelihood of failure. As one of the typical ageing phenomena, fatigue of concrete, has recently received considerable research attention. The phenomenon of concrete fatigue is complicated as...

Experimentally validated multi-scale fracture modelling scheme of cementitious materials

Cementitious materials are heterogeneous on mutliple length scales, from nanometres to metres. Consequently, their macroscopic mechanical properties are affected by material structures at all length scales. In pursuit of fundamental understanding the relationship between their multiscale heterogeneous material structure and mechanical properties...

Non-saturated Chloride Diffusion in Sustainable Cementitious Materials

Chloride-induced reinforcement corrosion, caused by chloride diffusion in the unsaturated concrete cover, is a major durability problem of concrete structures. Current concepts for concrete mixture design and for service life prediction are generally based on the understanding of the chloride diffusion coefficient of saturated concrete. This...

Thermodynamics of Autogenous Self-healing in Cementitious Materials

Concrete is a brittle composite cementitious material that easily fractures under tensile loading. Microcracks can appear throughout the concrete prior to application of any load because of temperature-induced strain and autogenous and drying shrinkage. There is no doubt that these cracks provide preferential access for aggressive agents to...

Computational modelling of dynamic failure of cementitious materials

A safe design of civil engineering concrete structures must include dynamic loading conditions. However, the knowledge on crack patterns and tensile failure strength of concrete material as a function of the dynamic loading is not sufficiently understood to accurately predict the risks and consequences of accidents. Concrete is a rate-dependent...

Experimental Study and Numerical Simulation of the Development of the Microstructure and Permeability of Cementitious Materials

The aim of this thesis was to investigate and to simulate the development of the microstructure, porosity and permeability in hardening cement-based materials. Based on experimental information and the cement hydration model HYMOSTRUC, the microstructural details including porosity, connectivity of pores and pore size distribution were...