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Experimental study on axial compressive behavior of stone masonry with ultra-high performance mortar

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Abstract

Ultra-high performance mortar (UHPM) has been proposed to replace conventional mortar (CM) as it can improve the compressive performance of stone masonry structure. To investigate performance features such as failure modes, load-versus deformation and ultimate compressive strength, eighteen UHPM and CM stone masonry specimens were tested under axial loading with mortar type, fiber type, mortar thickness and stone block surface condition as the main parameters. The test results indicate that for UHPM specimens, the primary cause of failure is the cracking of stone blocks rather than the mortar joints. And the cracking and ultimate compressive strength is 182.1% and 245.3% higher respectively compared with that of the CM ones. mechanism possible explanation is that stone blocks in stone masonry with UHPM are in a tri-axial compression due to the confinement effect of UHPM material which possesses high elastic modulus and low Poisson's ratio. UHPC without fibers recommended for stone masonry structures as the theoretically positive effects of steel and PVA fibers on UHPC did not show up in this experiment. The artificial sand blasting treatment on stone surface exerts little effect on the compressive performance of UHPC stone masonry. Based on the test results, a new formula of EC6 is recalculated and the ratio between recalculated and test values is 0.97 with a variance of 0.07. However, for the equation used to predict the compressive strength of UHPM stone masonry is still need to improvement.

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Acknowledgements

This project was sponsored in part by the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFC0705400), Project funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2023T160138), Guangxi University High-level Talent Funding Project (A3030051017, A3030051026) and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region Postdoctoral Innovative Talent Support Program (T3030097963). Their supports are gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Fujian University of Technology, Fuzhou, 350118, People’s Republic of China

    Cong Li & Baochun Chen

  2. School of Civil Engineering, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, People’s Republic of China

    Cong Li

  3. College of Civil Engineering, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, 350108, People’s Republic of China

    Baochun Chen, Junping Liu & Miaoxing Liao

  4. Civil Engineering Department, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, M5B 2K3, Canada

    Khaled Sennah

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  1. Cong Li
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Correspondence to Cong Li or Baochun Chen.

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Li, C., Chen, B., Sennah, K. et al. Experimental study on axial compressive behavior of stone masonry with ultra-high performance mortar. Mater Struct 56, 124 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-023-02215-8

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