Analysis of the Performances and Optimization of Polyurethane Concrete with a Large Percentage of Fly Ash

The properties of polyurethane concrete containing a large amount of fly ash are investigated,and accordingly,a model is introduced to account for the influence of fly ash fineness,water ratio,and loss of ignition(LOI)on its mechanical performances.This research shows that,after optimization,the concrete has a compressive strength of 20.8 MPa,a flexural strength of 3.4 MPa,and a compressive modulus of elasticity of 19.2 GPa.The main factor influencing 28 and 90 d compressive strength is fly ash content,water-binder ratio,and early strength agent content.

Effect of discrete fibre reinforcement on soil tensile strength

The tensile behaviour of soil plays a significantly important role in various engineering applications. Compacted soils used in geotechnical constructions such as dams and clayey liners in waste containment facilities can suffer from cracking due to tensile failure. In order to increase soil tensile strength, discrete fibre reinforcement technique was proposed. An innovative tensile apparatus was developed to deter- mine the tensile strength characteristics of fibre reinforced soil. The effects of fibre content, dry density and water content on the tensile strength were studied. The results indicate that the developed test apparatus was applicable in determining tensile strength of soils. Fibre inclusion can significantly in- crease soil tensile strength and soil tensile failure ductility. The tensile strength basically increases with increasing fibre content. As the fibre content increases from 0% to 0.2%, the tensile strength increases by 65.7%. The tensile strength of fibre reinforced soil increases with increasing dry density and decreases with decreasing water content. For instance, the tensile strength at a dry density of 1.7 Mg/m^3 is 2.8 times higher than that at 1.4 Mg/m^3. It decreases by 30% as the water content increases from 14.5% to 20.5%. Furthermore, it is observed that the tensile strength of fibre reinforced soil is dominated by fibre pull-out resistance, depending on the interracial mechanical interaction between fibre surface and soil matrix.

Influence of water content and shear rate on the mechanical behavior of soil-rock mixtures

Soil-rock mixtures(S-RMs) are widely distributed in the nature. The mesoscopic deformation and failure mechanisms as well as the macro-mechanical behaviors of the S-RMs depend largely upon the rate of deformation, water content and particle sizes. In this research, a series of large-scale direct shear tests with different water contents and different grain-size distributions were conducted to study the influence of the aforementioned factors on the mechanical properties of the S-RMs. Due to the effect of the rock blocks' breakage in the S-RMs, the relationship between the shear strength and the vertical stress of S-RM follows a power law instead of a linear one. It is found that there exists a threshold value for the vertical stress during the shearing process,below which the soil strength is mainly determined by the inter-locking of particles and the re-arrangement of meso-structure,and otherwise large-sized rock blocks are gradually broken into smaller fragments, resulting in a decrease in the soil strength.The shear rate can also significantly influence the degree of particle breakage and the meso-structural rearrangement of the SRMs, namely, under low shear rate, the particles of the samples are fully broken resulting in enhanced macro-strength. As a result, the lower the shear rate, the higher the macroscopic strength. So under unsaturated conditions, the water content will affect the strength of the S-RMs by reducing the strength of rock blocks. As the water content increases, the soil strength decreases gradually, and assumes a moderate value when the water content reaches 8%. At the same water content, the soil strength increases with the sizes of large rock blocks. For the occlusion, breakage and structure re-arrangement of the oversized rock blocks inside S-RM, which have a huge influence on the mechanical characteristics of the samples.