Nano/micro-structures and mechanical properties of ultra-high performance concrete incorporating graphene with different lateral sizes
Dong, S. Wang, Y. Han, B. Ou, J.
Dong, S.
Wang, Y.
Han, B.
Ou, J.
Citations
Altmetric:
Publication Date
2020-10
End of Embargo
Supervisor
Rights
Peer-Reviewed
Yes
Open Access status
closedAccess
Accepted for publication
2020-06-08
Institution
Department
Awarded
Embargo end date
Additional title
Abstract
The performance of cement-based materials can be controlled and tailored by adjusting the characteristics of reinforced nano inclusions. Therefore, the lateral size effect of graphene on the nano/micro-structures of ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) was explored, and then the mechanical properties were investigated to analyze the structure-property correlation of composites in this paper. The test results show that due to nucleation site effect and the formation of core-shell elements, incorporating graphene with lateral size of > 50 µm improves the polymerization degree and mean molecule chain length of C-S-H gel by 242.6% and 56.3%, respectively. Meanwhile, the porosity and average pore volume of composites is reduced by 41.4% and 43.4%. Furthermore, graphene can effectively inhibit the initiation and propagation of cracks by crack-bridging, crack-deflection, pinning and being pulled-out effect, and the wrinkling characteristic is conductive to the enhancement of pinning effect. These improvements on nano- and micro- structures result in that the compressive strength, compressive toughness and three-point bending modulus of UHPC are increased by 43.5%, 95.7% and 39.1%, respectively, when graphene with lateral size of > 50 µm and dosage of 0.5% is added. Compared to graphene with lateral size of > 50 µm, graphene with average lateral size of 10 µm has less folds and larger effective size, then reducing the distance between core-shell elements. Hence, the addition of graphene with average lateral size of 10 µm leads to 21.1% reduction for Ca(OH)2 crystal orientation index, as well as 30.0% increase for three-point bending strength. It can be, therefore, concluded that the lateral size of graphene obviously influences the nano/micro-structures of UHPC, thus leading to the significantly different reinforcing effects of graphene on mechanical behaviors of UHPC.
Version
No full-text in the repository
Citation
Dong S, Wang Y, Ashour AF et al (2020) Nano/micro-structures and mechanical properties of ultra-high performance concrete incorporating graphene with different lateral sizes. Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing. 137: 106011.
Link to publisher’s version
Link to published version
Link to Version of Record
Type
Article