Moisture Transport of Axial-Compression-Damaged Mortar and Concrete in Atmospheric Environment

The moisture transport of axial-compression-damaged mortar and concrete was experimentally and analytically studied in this paper. Five stress levels, i.e., 25%, 40%, 55%, 70%, and 85%, of the corresponding ultimate compressive strengths were selected for mortar and concrete specimens with the water cement ratio (w/c) of 0.5. Porosities and sorptivities of mortar or concrete before and after axial compression were measured and compared. Based on the Lucas–Washburn equation on absorption, the relationship between sorptivity and pore size distribution as well as porosity was established. A damage-representative radius was proposed to simply quantify the variation of pore characteristics of damaged mortar and concrete, and the moisture transport of axial-compression-damaged mortar and concrete could be predicted by summing the contributions to water absorption from the original pore system and the pore-equivalent microcrack system. It is shown that the porosities of mortar and concrete only slightly increase with the damage level, but the sorptivities are sensitive to axial compression damage, i.e., increasing nearly monotonically with the stress level from 0.3326 to 0.3533 mm/min0.5 for damaged mortar specimens (w/c = 0.5) and from 0.1970 to 0.2226 mm/min0.5 for damaged concrete specimens (w/c = 0.5). The increase trend became more apparent for both materials after a threshold of 40–55% of the corresponding ultimate compressive strengths, which is within the service load of structures, indicating that damage should be considered for chloride ions and water transport in concrete in the tidal zone. The predicted moisture diffusivities of damaged mortar and concrete show marginal difference from those of sound materials because the damage-representative radius could be underestimated due to elastic recovery of materials after unloading.

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