Definition of the general initial water penetration fracture criterion for concrete and its engineering application

A general initial water penetration(seepage) fracture criterion for concrete is proposed to predict whether or not harmful water penetration(hydraulic fracturing),other than microcracking,will occur in concrete structures in a severe high water pressure environment.The final regression,of the different macroscopic failure types in concrete to microscopic ModeⅠ c racking,allows the use of only one universal criterion to indicate the damage.Thus,a general initial water penetration fracture criterion is approximately defined as a strain magnitude of 1000×10-6,based on the concept of tensile strain derived from experimental results in the relevant literature.Then,the locations of harmful water penetration fracture(hydraulic fracture) in the high arch dam mass of the Jinping first class hydropower project are analyzed using the nonlinear finite element method(FEM) according to the proposed criterion.The proposed criterion also holds promise for other concrete structures in high water pressure environments.

Fundamental Study on Alkali-Activated Slag System with Sodium Carbonate or Calcium Hydroxide

Cement as a building material, has high fluidity, compressive strength, and durability, but carbon dioxide emissions during cement production are a major problem. As one of the countermeasures, alkali-activated cement using blast furnace slag powder with alkaline stimulants is considered to be a very promising solution for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, but there is a lack of information about the fundamental properties of alkali-activated materials. This study presents an experimental investigation of the fundamental properties of an alkali-activated slag system with sodium carbonate (NC) and calcium hydroxide (CH). The effects of calcium sulfo-aluminate (CSA) and shrinkage reducing agent (SRA) on the properties of blast furnace slag (BFS) based alkali-activated mixture were also investigated. In the experiments, fundamental characteristics including compressive strength, drying shrinkage, and water penetration tests of mortar were evaluated. Porosity, pH, and ignition loss were measured to verify the effectiveness of the materials. The experimental investigation revealed that the compressive strength was increased with the increasing replacement rates of NC in the BFS mortar, and in the case of water to BFS ratio of 0.45 with sodium carbonation addition contents 10 wt.%, the compressive strength for 28 days of curing reaches more than 50 MPa. Low water to BFS ratio and higher addition ratio of NC had a positive effect on the compressive strength development of mortar. Incorporating NC into BFS would affect the decrease in porosity and increase in ignition loss, leading to higher compressive strength. There was a negligible change to the compressive strength, porosity, pH, and ignition loss of BFS samples made with CH, thus, the addition rates of CH to BFS have no or little significant effect on the fundamental properties of alkali-activated cement. From the results of drying shrinkage and water penetration tests, the addition of NC and CH only to BFS exhibited poor drying shrinkage and water penetration characteristics. However, these problems may be overcome due to the use of CSA or SRA in the alkali-activated system made with NC or CH.

Chloride ion penetration into concrete under hydraulic pressure

The lining concrete of subsea tunnel services under combined hydraulic pressure, mechanical and environmental loads. The chloride ion and water penetrations into concrete under hydraulic pressure were investigated. The experimental results indicate that the water penetration depth, chloride ion transportation depth, and the concentration of chloride ion ingression into concrete increase with raised hydraulic pressure and hold press period. But the chloride ion transportation velocity is only 53% of that of water when concrete specimens are under hydraulic pressure. The chloride transportation coefficient of concrete decreases with hold press period as power function. And that would increase 500% 600% in chloride transportation coefficient when the hydraulic pressure increases from 0 to 1.2 MPa. The hydraulic pressure also decreases the bound chloride ion of concrete to about zero. Besides, the low water-cementitions materials and suitable content of mineral admixture(including fly ash and slag) improve the resistance capacity of chloride penetration, and binding capacity of concrete under hydraulic pressure.

Reliability-based design of lining structures for underground space against water seepage

The use of underground spaces is becoming increasingly important in this era of rapid urbanization and population growth.However,underground spaces are susceptible to water ingress,which may trigger the deterioration of their structural performance and reduce their serviceability.This highlights the importance of the proper design of lining structures with an emphasis on water penetration.This study develops a reliability-based approach to guide the design of lining structures used for underground spaces.The equivalent depth of water seepage is considered for a two-dimensional lining structure in the presence of the randomness and spatial correlation of the water seepage distribution.The probabilistic behavior of the equivalent seepage depth that is derived serves as the basis for reliability-based design of lining structures.A simple design criterion is developed.An example is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach.

Characteristics of Water Infiltration in Layered Water-Repellent Soils

Water-repellent(WR) soil greatly influences infiltration behavior. This research determined the impacts of WR levels of silt loam soil layer during infiltration. Three column scenarios were utilized, including homogeneous wettable silt loam or sand, silt loam over sand(silt loam/sand), and sand over silt loam(sand/silt loam). A 5-cm thick silt loam soil layer was placed either at the soil surface or 5 cm below the soil surface. The silt loam soil used had been treated to produce different WR levels, wettable, slightly WR, strongly WR, and severely WR. As the WR level increased from wettable to severely WR, the cumulative infiltration decreased. Traditional wetting front-related equations did not adequately describe the infiltration rate and time relationships for layered WR soils. The Kostiakov equation provided a good fit for the first infiltration stage. Average infiltration rates for wettable, slightly WR, strongly WR, and severely WR during the 2 nd infiltration stage were 0.126, 0.021, 0.002, and 0.001 mm min^(-1) for the silt loam/sand scenario,respectively, and 0.112, 0.003, 0.002, and 0.000 5 mm min^(-1) for the sand/silt loam scenario, respectively. Pseudo-saturation phenomena occurred when visually examining the wetting fronts and from the apparent changes in water content(?θ_(AP)) at the slightly WR,strongly WR, and severely WR levels for the silt loam/sand scenario. Much larger ?θAPvalues indicated the possible existence of finger flow. Delayed water penetration into the surface soil for the strongly WR level in the silt loam/sand scenario suggested negative water heads with infiltration times longer than 10 min. The silt loam/sand soil layers produced sharp transition zones of water content. The WR level of the silt loam soil layer had greater effects on infiltration than the layer position in the column.

Reclamation of oil-induced soil hydrophobicity in the hyper-arid Evrona Nature Reserve,southern Israel

Two oil spills occurred in the Evrona Nature Reserve(southern Israel),in 1975 and 2014.This oil contamination induced highly persistent soil hydrophobicity.The objective of this study was to investigate the decrease in oil-induced soil hydrophobicity under different environmental conditions and to assess the relationship between the hydrophobicity and hydrocarbon content.A laboratory incubation experiment was conducted over 1.5 years to monitor the soil hydrophobicity and total hydrocarbon concentration under different environmental conditions.We hypothesized that the addition of water(20% or 50% saturation),nutrients,and biosurfactants can accelerate the reduction in hydrophobicity and decomposition of hydrocarbons.Water drop penetration time and molarity of ethanol droplet tests were used to assess soil hydrophobicity.In parallel,alkane composition and total petroleum hydrocarbons were evaluated to indicate oil attenuation.The addition of water,nutrients,and biosurfactants resulted in a concomitant reduction in hydrophobicity and hydrocarbon concentration of varying degrees,exhibiting enhanced degradation and hydrophobicity reduction observed in treatments to which nutrients and biosurfactants were added.At the end of the incubation,however,soil hydrophobicity in all treatments remained severe,even though total petroleum hydrocarbon removal was fairly high and reached 40%–80%in the treatments to which water with or without nutrients and/or surfactants was added.