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Effects of Void Clustering on the Thermal and Mechanical Properties of Concrete Evaluated Using Numerical Methods

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Abstract

Concrete contains several components in the material, and the spatial distributions of its components strongly affect material properties. In particular, entrained voids in a concrete specimen are dominant in determining the material characteristics and its properties. The voids in a material have a significant effect in enhancing insulation performance of concrete, while the mechanical properties decrease as the porosity increases in general. Therefore, a proper investigation is needed to identify the effect of void characteristics in concrete. Here, the effect of void clustering on the responses of porous materials is evaluated. A set of virtual porous specimens with different void clusters are produced, and the probability functions are used to characterize their void distributions. The thermal conductivity and mechanical properties (i.e., elastic modulus) of the virtual specimens are examined numerically. The correlation between the void clustering and the material properties is confirmed and it is found that both thermo-mechanical properties of concrete decrease as the cluster size of voids increases.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a National Research Foundation funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2016R1D1A1B03931635). The project was also supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, Project number: 01DR16007)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Technische Universität Berlin, Gustav-Meyer-Allee 25, 13355, Berlin, Germany

    Sang-Yeop Chung

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Yonsei University, Yonsei-ro 50, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 03722, Republic of Korea

    Ji-Su Kim & Tong-Seok Han

  3. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Sejong University, Neungdong-ro 209, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, 05006, Republic of Korea

    Sang-Yeop Chung

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  1. Sang-Yeop Chung
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Correspondence to Tong-Seok Han.

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Chung, SY., Kim, JS. & Han, TS. Effects of Void Clustering on the Thermal and Mechanical Properties of Concrete Evaluated Using Numerical Methods. Multiscale Sci. Eng. 1, 196–209 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42493-019-00017-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42493-019-00017-1

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