Investigation on thermophysical properties of reactive powder concrete

The thermophysical properties,such as thermal conductivity,thermal diffusivity,specific heat capacity and linear thermal expansion of reactive powder concrete(RPC) with different steel fiber volumetric fractions are investigated by means of high temperature tests. The thermophysical characteristics of RPC with different fiber volumes under different temperatures are analyzed and compared with those of the common high-strength concrete and high-performance concrete. The empirical relationships of thermophysical properties with temperature and fiber volume are identified. By the heat transfer and solid physics methods,the microscopic physical mechanism of heat transfer process and heat conduction properties of RPC are investigated,and the theoretical formulas of specific heat capacity and thermal expansion coefficient are derived,respectively. The effects of temperature and steel fibers on the specific heat capacity and the thermal expansion coefficient are quantitatively analyzed and the discriminant conditions are provided. It is shown that the experimental results are consistent with the theoretical prediction.

An investigation on micro pore structures and the vapor pressure mechanism of explosive spalling of RPC exposed to high temperature

Reactive powder concrete （RPC） is vulnerable to explosive spalling when exposed to high temperature. The characteristics of micro pore structure and vapor pressure of RPC are closely related to the thermal spalling. Applying mercury intrusion po- rosimetry （MIP） and scanning electron microscopy （SEM） techniques, the authors probed the characteristics of micro pore structures of plain RPC200 when heated from 20-350~C. The pore characteristics such as specific pore volume, threshold pore size and most probable pore size varying with temperatures were investigated. A vapor pressure kit was developed to measure the vapor pressure and its variation inside RPC200 at various temperatures. A thin-wall spherical pore model was proposed to ana- lyze the thermo-mechanical mechanism of spalling, by which the stresses varying with the vapor pressure q（T） and the character- istic size of wall （K） at any point of interest were determined. It is shown that the pore characteristics including specific pore volume, average pore size, threshold pore size and most probable pore size rise significantly with the increasing temperature. 200~C appears to be the threshold temperature above which the threshold pore size and the most probable pore size climb up dramatically. The increase in the specific pore volume results from the growth both in quantity and in volume of the transition pores and the capillary pores. The appearance of the explosive spalling in RPC200 is mainly attributed to being unable to form pathways in favor of releasing water steam in RPC and to thin-wall sphere domain where the vapor pressure governs the the rapid accumulation of high vapor pressures as well. The spalling is bounded through the pore model.