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Effect of Free Water on the Mechanical Properties and Blast Resistance of Concrete

  • Structural Engineering
  • Published:
KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering Aims and scope

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of free water on the mechanical properties and blast resistance of concrete. For this purpose, comparative experiments on saturated and normal concretes subjected to quasi-static compression, cyclic loading-unloading, quasi-static splitting, and dynamic compression are conducted. Thereafter, contact explosion tests are performed on saturated and normal concrete slabs. The results show that free water reduces the blast resistance of concrete slabs. This is primarily because free water alters the mechanical properties of concrete, including its compressive strength, tensile strength, damage evolution rate, and strain rate effect. Therefore, the material parameters of saturated concrete differed from those of normal concrete. It is unreasonable to employ the material parameters of normal concrete for simulating the cracks and damage modes in hydraulic concrete structures subjected to underwater explosions. Then, the material parameters of Holmquist-Johnson-Cook constitutive model for the saturated and normal concrete slabs are determined based on experimental data, respectively. Finally, the numerical simulation of concrete slabs subjected to contact explosions was carried out. The results show that the numerical predictions and the test data both for the saturated and normal concrete slabs subjected to contact explosions were in good agreement.

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Abbreviations

A :

Normalized cohesive strength

A 1, B 1, R 1, R 2, ω :

Material constants of TNT

B :

Normalized pressure hardening coefficient

C :

Strain rate coefficient

d :

Specimen diameter

D :

Damage factor

D 1, D 2, EFMN :

Damage constants of concrete

DIF:

Dynamic increase factor

E :

Elastic modulus

f c :

Compressive strength under different strain rates

f c′:

Quasi-static uniaxial compressive strength

f cs :

Quasi-static uniaxial compressive strength

F A :

Interpolation factor

F(t):

Compressive force

k :

Slope ratio

K :

Bulk modulus

K elastic :

Elastic bulk modulus

K 1, K 2, K 3 :

Material constants of concrete

l :

Specimen length

N :

Pressure hardening exponent

P :

Actual hydrostaticp ressure

P* :

Normalized pressure

P crush :

Pressure that occur in a uniaxial stress compressive test

P lock :

Pressure at which all air voids are removed from the concrete

P max :

Maximum hydrostatic pressure

SMAX:

Normalized maximum strength

T :

Maximum tensile hydrostatic pressure

T* :

Normalized maximum tensile hydrostatic pressure

V :

Specific volume of TNT

γ :

A constant

\(\mathop {\dot \varepsilon}\limits^* \) :

Dimensionless strain rate

\(\dot \varepsilon \) :

Actual strain rate

ε 0 :

Reference strain rate

εp :

Equivalent plastic strain

μ :

Standard volumetric strain

μ crush :

Volumetric strain that occur in a uniaxial stress compressive test

μ lock :

Locking volumetric strain

μmax :

Maximum volumetric strain

μp :

Plastic volumetric strain

μ plock :

Volumetric strain at Plock

\(\overline \mu \) :

Modified volumetric strain

v :

Poisson’s ratio

ρ :

Current density

ρ 0 :

Initial density

ρ grain :

Grain density

σ :

Actual equivalent stress

σ* :

Normalized equivalent stress

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11402266 and 11772160), and the Open Foundation of the Hypervelocity Impact Research Center of CARDC (Grant No. 20200203).

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Correspondence to Ruiyuan Huang.

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Huang, R., Hu, L., Qin, J. et al. Effect of Free Water on the Mechanical Properties and Blast Resistance of Concrete. KSCE J Civ Eng 25, 3084–3096 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-021-2169-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-021-2169-0

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