Optimal design for epoxy polymer concrete based on mechanical properties and durability aspects

Abstract

Polymer concrete has shown a number of promising applications in building and construction, but its mix design process remains arbitrary due to lack of understanding of how constituent materials influence performance. This paper investigated the effect of resin-to-filler ratio and matrix-to-aggregate ratio on mechanical and durability properties of epoxy-based polymer concrete in order to optimise its mix design. A novel combination of fire-retardant, hollow microsphere and fly ash fillers were used and specimens were prepared using resin-to-filler ratios by volume from 100:0 to 40:60 at 10% increment. Another group of specimens were prepared using matrix-to-aggregate ratios from 1:0 decreasing to 1:0.45, 1:0.90 and 1:1.35 by weight at constant resin-to-filler ratio. The specimens were inspected and tested under compressive, tensile and flexural loading conditions. The epoxy polymer matrix shows excellent durability in air, water, saline solution, and hygrothermal environments. Results show that the resin-to-filler ratio has significant influence on the spatial distribution of aggregates. Severe segregation occurred when the matrix contained less than 40% filler while a uniform aggregate distribution was obtained when the matrix had at least 40% filler. Moreover, the tensile strength, flexural strength and ductility decreased with decrease in matrix-to-aggregate ratio. Empirical models for polymer concrete were proposed based on the experimental results. The optimal resin-to-filler ratio was 70:30 and 60:40 for non-uniform and uniform distribution of aggregates, respectively, while a matrix-to-aggregate ratio of 1:1.35 was optimal in terms of achieving a good balance between performance and cost.

Experimental Investigation of Stochastic Mechanical Behavior of Cement Emulsified Asphalt Mortar under Monotonic Compression

“…Furthermore, by considering the lack of capability for characterizing the stochastic behaviors (variance), the applicability of the proposed model is wider, to some extent, compared with the presented model mentioned in this work. In summary, by examining the comparison results between the predictions and the experimental results in this work, it is verified that the proposed model is able to characterize the stochastic constitutive relationship (nonlinear and random stress-strain behaviors) of CA mortar under uniaxial monotonic compression with clear physical meaning based on a statistical damage approach, while some researchers used empirical relationships to predict certain mechanical behaviors of materials [11,22,24,25,48,59,60].…”

“…N denotes the total number of stress-strain curves, and σ i (ε) denotes the stress corresponding to the strain in i-th stress-strain curve. The complete stress-strain curves are plotted in Figure 5a, in which the nonlinearities of the stress-strain behaviors are fully captured while some researchers focus on discovering certain mechanical behaviors (e.g., strength, Young's modulus) [11,22,48,59,60]. The corresponding average curve and standard deviation curve generated by Equations (4) and (5) are illustrated in Figure 5b.…”

“…Furthermore, by considering the lack of capability for characterizing the stochastic behaviors (variance), the applicability of the proposed model is wider, to some extent, compared with the presented model mentioned in this work. In addition, from a practical point of view, although the proposed model can capture the nonlinearity and randomness of the stress-strain behavior, a number of models based on empirical and theoretical approaches proposed in foregoing studies [8,[21][22][23][24][25]35,[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54]59,60,63] also provide lucid and acceptable results to predict relevant mechanical properties of certain materials. Thus, in order to further verify the applicability and accuracy for the proposed model, a comparison between the predicted mean stress-strain curve by using the proposed model and the model developed by Fu et al mentioned in the literature [35] were conducted.…”

Prediction of Chloride Distribution for Offshore Concrete Based on Statistical Analysis

“…The hostile marine environment creates many concerns for offshore concrete structures, in particular, corrosion-induced degradation in reinforced or pre-stressed concrete structures. One of the key causes of such degradation is chloride penetration, which may significantly affect the durability performance of the structures during their designed service life [4]. The penetrated chlorides, as well as the corresponding rebar-corrosion initiation, have therefore become an important factor in the durability design of offshore concrete structures.…”

Influence of machining parameters on the polymer concrete milling process

“…Such materials include polymer concrete, which also appears under the name mineral cast. It is a complex material consisting of inorganic aggregates, such as basalt, spodumene (LiAlSi 2 O 6 ), fly ash, river gravel, sand, chalk, etc., bound with each other by resin [1][2][3]. The most commonly used resins are epoxy [4], polyester [5] and vinyl ester [6].…”