Fracture process zone and tensile behavior of blended binders containing limestone powder

Sumanta Das, Matthew Aguayo, Gaurav Sant, Barzin Mobasher, Narayanan Neithalath

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

33 Scopus citations

Abstract

Abstract Higher volumes of limestone can be used as OPC replacement by exploiting its increased reactivity in the presence of aluminous sources, thereby ensuring property-equivalence or improvements (e.g., strength, ionic transport). To examine the improvements in matrix fracture response in blended binder systems, this study characterizes and quantifies the flexural fracture process zone (FPZ) using digital image correlation. For the traditional OPC mortar, the localized strain intensity in the crack vicinity is the highest, FPZ initiates at a lower crack mouth opening displacement (CMOD), and its width is the lowest, while OPC-limestone-metakaolin blends show the lowest localized strain intensity, higher CMOD at FPZ initiation, and the highest FPZ width. The ultimate tensile strain and tensile toughness, extracted via inverse analysis, are found to be the highest for the ternary blends. The tensile modulus and the area under the softening region of the tensile constitutive relationship correlate well to the FPZ parameters.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number4922
Pages (from-to)51-62
Number of pages12
JournalCement and Concrete Research
Volume73
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2015

Keywords

  • CaCO (D)
  • Fracture process zone
  • Fracture toughness (C)
  • Pozzolan (D)
  • Tensile properties (B)

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Building and Construction
  • Materials Science(all)

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