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Design and Performance of Cost-Effective Ultra-High Performance Concrete for Prefabricated Elements

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Design and Performance of Cost-Effective Ultra-High Performance Concrete for Prefabricated Elements Scholars' Mine Doctoral Dissertations Student Theses and Dissertations Summer 2017 Design and performance of cost-effective ultra-high performance concrete for prefabricated elements Weina Meng Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/doctoral_dissertations Part of the Civil Engineering Commons Department: Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Recommended Citation Meng, Weina, "Design and performance of cost-effective ultra-high performance concrete for prefabricated elements" (2017). Doctoral Dissertations. 2582. https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/doctoral_dissertations/2582 This thesis is brought to you by Scholars' Mine, a service of the Missouri S&T Library and Learning Resources. This work is protected by U. S. Copyright Law. Unauthorized use including reproduction for redistribution requires the permission of the copyright holder. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE OF COST-EFFECTIVE ULTRA-HIGH PERFORMANCE CONCRETE FOR PREFABRICATED ELEMENTS by WEINA MENG A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the MISSOURI UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in CIVIL ENGINEERING 2017 Approved by Dr. Kamal Henri Khayat, Advisor Dr. John Joseph Myers Dr. Grace (Guirong) Yan Dr. Aditya Kumar Dr. K.Chandrashekhara 2017 Weina Meng All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT This study presented in this thesis aims to: (1) develop a mixture design methodology for cost-effective ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) incorporating high volume of supplementary cementitious materials and conventional concrete and masonry sands; (2) developed UHPC with adapted rheology incorporating lightweight sand, hybrid fibers, and nanomaterials with improved properties; (3) design prefabricated UHPC panels with fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP) for enhanced flexural properties of stay-in-place panels made with optimized UHPC; and (4) explore potential applications of such UHPC elements. The proposed design methodology produced UHPC mixtures with 28-days compressive strengths higher than 125 and 168 MPa under standard water curing and 1-d steam curing at 90 ºC. To further improve the properties, internal curing using pre-saturated lightweight sand, rheology control of the suspending mortar before steel fibers addition, and reinforcement of hybrid fibers and carbon nanomaterials, were employed. The outcome indicated: (a) the optimum replacement ratio of lightweight sand to river sand in the UHPC was 25% to increase mechanical properties and reduce shrinkage; (b) at steel fiber content of 2%, the optimal plastic viscosity of the suspending mortar was 53 ± 3 Pa·s to secure favorable fiber distribution and enhance flexural properties of the UHPC; (c) through use of hybrid steel fibers, the flexural strength, tensile strength, and autogenous shrinkage of UHPC can increase by up to 20%, 25%, and reduced by 40%, respectively; (d) adding nanomaterials at a volume fraction of 0.3% increased the tensile strength and energy absorption capacity of the UHPC by 55% and 185%, respectively. In the end, novel applications of the developed reinforced and non- reinforced UHPC-FRP systems were explored for various applications. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am very pleased to be able to thank a lot of nice people for having helped me carry out this research and given me their supports. First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Dr. Kamal Khayat for offering great opportunities and providing consistent guidance, advice, and encouragement to support my study and help me learned a lot of interesting new things at Missouri University of Science and Technology. I am also deeply grateful for the great working environment provided by Dr. Kamal Khayat. It has been a great privilege and a pleasure to have worked with him. Appreciation is extended to the members of the advisory committee, Drs. John Myers, Grace Yan, Aditya Kumar, and K. Chandrashekhara for their time to review my work and offered insightful and valuable comments. I also appreciate the great assistance from my fellow colleagues and friends during the memorable hours inside and outside of the Engineering Research Laboratory and the Highbay Structures Laboratory at Missouri University of Science and Technology, including Mr. Jason Cox, Mr. Mahdi Valipour, Miss Zemei Wu, Mr. Iman Mehdipour, Mr. Seyedhamed Sadati, Mr. Ahmed Abdelrazile, Mr. Matthew Hopkins, Mr. Wenyu Liao, Mr. Liang Fan, Mr. Sooduck Hwang, Mr. Garry Abott, Mr. Brian Swift, Mr. Ronald G. Leckrone, and Mr. John Bullocks. I thank Ms. Gayle Spitzmiller and Abigayle Sherman from Center for Infrastructure Engineering Studies – their friendly presence and everyday support were important to me. I would also like to acknowledge the financial supports from the RE-CAST University Transportation Center at Missouri University of S&T under grant No. DTRT13-G- UTC45. There are surely much better ways to thank those I love the most, those with whom I sincerely share all the sadness and happiness, and who were always there for me. I wish to express special and sincere gratitude to my parents Mrs. Xianqing Liang and Mr. Jinhua Meng for their selfless love, my parents-in-law Mrs Guofang Zhang and Mr. Jianshe Bao for their unconditional support and care. My deepest gratitude I need to express to Yi Bao, my beloved husband for his love and all the beautiful moments we shared together. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... xiii LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... xix SECTION 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 1 1.1. BACKGROUND, PROBLEM, AND JUSTIFICATION .................................. 1 1.2. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................... 1 1.2.1. Overview of UHPC. ................................................................................. 1 1.2.2. Basic Information on UHPC Mix Design. ................................................ 3 1.2.2.1 Minimization of porosity. .............................................................3 1.2.2.2 Modification of the matrix microstructure....................................4 1.2.2.3 Increasing the homogeneity of the material.. ................................5 1.2.3. Constituent Materials of UHPC.. .............................................................. 6 1.2.3.1 Cementitious materials .................................................................6 1.2.3.1.1 Cement. ........................................................................ 6 1.2.3.1.2 Silica fume. .................................................................. 7 1.2.3.1.3 Fly ash ......................................................................... 7 1.2.3.1.4 GGBS.. ........................................................................ 8 1.2.3.2 HRWR. .........................................................................................9 1.2.3.3 Sand. .............................................................................................9 1.2.3.4 Reinforcing fibers. ......................................................................10 1.2.3.5 Typical composition of UHPC. ..................................................11 1.2.4. Characteristics of UHPC. ....................................................................... 12 1.2.4.1 Fresh and physical properties.. ...................................................12 1.2.4.2 Mechanical properties.. ...............................................................13 1.2.4.3 Shrinkage. ...................................................................................14 1.2.4.4 Durability. ...................................................................................15 1.2.5. Applications of UHPC in Precast Industry. ............................................ 16 vi 1.3. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE OF WORK................................... 17 1.4. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH .......................................................... 18 1.5. ORGANIZATION OF THIS DISSERTATION .............................................. 19 2. OPTIMIZATION AND PERFORMANCE OF COST-EFFECTIVE UHPC .......... 22 2.1. BACKGROUND .............................................................................................. 22 2.2. MATERIALS, MIXERS, AND SPECIMEN PREPARATIONS .................... 24 2.3. PROPOSED MIX DESIGN PROCEDURE AND EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM ...................................................................................................... 25 2.3.1. Step 1: Optimize Binder Combinations for Paste. .................................. 25 2.3.1.1 Sub-step 1a: Select binder candidates based on flow characteristics for paste.. .............................................................26 2.3.1.2 Sub-step 1b: Narrow down binder candidates based on key fresh and hardened properties for paste. ..............................27 2.3.1.3 Sub-step 1c: Finalize the binder selection based on the rheological properties for paste.
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