scholarly journals Demolition of concrete by thermal shock spallation: a mesoscopic numerical study based on embedded discontinuity finite elements

2020 ◽  
Vol 225 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-217
Author(s):  
Timo Saksala

AbstractThis paper deals with 2D (plane strain) and axisymmetric numerical modelling of concrete fracture processes under mechanical and thermal loading. A mesoscopic modelling approach with an explicit representation of aggregates as Voronoi polygons is chosen while the concrete fracture model is based on rate-dependent embedded discontinuity finite elements with Rankine criterion indicating a new crack initiation. This choice enables the study of the effects of inherent crack populations on the response of concrete under mechanical and thermal loading. In the numerical examples, the performance of the present modelling approach is first demonstrated in the uniaxial compression and tension tests under plane strain conditions. Then, the problem of thermal spallation of concrete surface under dry conditions due to a high intensity, short duration heat flux is simulated under axisymmetric conditions. The underlying uncoupled thermo-mechanical problem is solved with an explicit time marching scheme based on the staggered approach. Different heat flux intensities and heating times as well as combined effect of surface roughness and pre-stress field are tested. The simulation results suggest that demolition of concrete structures by heat shock is a viable method.

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 345-354
Author(s):  
Hamza Daghab ◽  
Mourad Kaddiri ◽  
Said Raghay ◽  
Mohamed Lamsaadi ◽  
Hassan El Harfi

Two-dimensional steady laminar natural convection of a viscoelastic fluid represented by generalized second-grade fluid model in a square enclosure is studied. The cavity is submitted at its vertical sides to a uniform density of heat flux while the horizontal walls are insulated, without slipping conditions at all the solid boundaries. The governing conservation and constitutive equations with the corresponding boundary conditions are solved by finite volume method in a collocated grid system. The contributions of shear rate dependent and elastic characteristics of the viscoelastic fluid are investigated on momentum and heat transport. The effects of elastic number (E) in the range 0 - 1 on heat transfer and fluid motion are interpreted for a power-law index (n) in the range 1.4 - 0.6 and nominal values of Rayleigh number (Ra) range of 103 to 105.


Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (23) ◽  
pp. 7421
Author(s):  
Penglin Zhang ◽  
Zhijun Wu ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
Zhaofei Chu

As an important parameter for concrete, fracture energy is difficult to accurately measure in high loading rate tests due to the limitations of experimental devices and methods. Therefore, the utilization of numerical methods to study the dynamic fracture energy of concrete is a simple and promising choice. This paper presents a numerical investigation on the influence of loading rate on concrete fracture energy and cracking behaviors. A novel rate-dependent cohesive model, which was programmed as a user subroutine in the commercial explicit finite element solver LS-DYNA, is first proposed. After conducting mesh sensitivity analysis, the proposed model is calibrated against representative experimental data. Then, the underlying mechanisms of the increase in fracture energy due to a high strain rate are determined. The results illustrate that the higher fracture energy during dynamic tension loading is caused by the wider region of the damage zone and the increase in real fracture energy. As the loading rate increases, the wider region of the damage zone plays a leading role in increasing fracture energy. In addition, as the strain rate increases, the number of microcracks whose fracture mode is mixed mode increases, which has an obvious effect on the change in real fracture energy.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Eduardo Freitas ◽  
Pedro Pontes ◽  
Ricardo Cautela ◽  
Vaibhav Bahadur ◽  
João Miranda ◽  
...  

This study addresses the combination of customized surface modification with the use of nanofluids, to infer on its potential to enhance pool-boiling heat transfer. Hydrophilic surfaces patterned with superhydrophobic regions were developed and used as surface interfaces with different nanofluids (water with gold, silver, aluminum and alumina nanoparticles), in order to evaluate the effect of the nature and concentration of the nanoparticles in bubble dynamics and consequently in heat transfer processes. The main qualitative and quantitative analysis was based on extensive post-processing of synchronized high-speed and thermographic images. To study the nucleation of a single bubble in pool boiling condition, a numerical model was also implemented. The results show an evident benefit of using biphilic patterns with well-established distances between the superhydrophobic regions. This can be observed in the resulting plot of the dissipated heat flux for a biphilic pattern with seven superhydrophobic spots, δ = 1/d and an imposed heat flux of 2132 w/m2. In this case, the dissipated heat flux is almost constant (except in the instant t* ≈ 0.9 when it reaches a peak of 2400 W/m2), whilst when using only a single superhydrophobic spot, where the heat flux dissipation reaches the maximum shortly after the detachment of the bubble, dropping continuously until a new necking phase starts. The biphilic patterns also allow a controlled bubble coalescence, which promotes fluid convection at the hydrophilic spacing between the superhydrophobic regions, which clearly contributes to cool down the surface. This effect is noticeable in the case of employing the Ag 1 wt% nanofluid, with an imposed heat flux of 2132 W/m2, where the coalescence of the drops promotes a surface cooling, identified by a temperature drop of 0.7 °C in the hydrophilic areas. Those areas have an average temperature of 101.8 °C, whilst the average temperature of the superhydrophobic spots at coalescence time is of 102.9 °C. For low concentrations as the ones used in this work, the effect of the nanofluids was observed to play a minor role. This can be observed on the slight discrepancy of the heat dissipation decay that occurred in the necking stage of the bubbles for nanofluids with the same kind of nanoparticles and different concentration. For the Au 0.1 wt% nanofluid, a heat dissipation decay of 350 W/m2 was reported, whilst for the Au 0.5 wt% nanofluid, the same decay was only of 280 W/m2. The results of the numerical model concerning velocity fields indicated a sudden acceleration at the bubble detachment, as can be qualitatively analyzed in the thermographic images obtained in this work. Additionally, the temperature fields of the analyzed region present the same tendency as the experimental results.


1996 ◽  
Vol 118 (3) ◽  
pp. 592-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. S. Zhao ◽  
P. Cheng

An experimental and numerical study has been carried out for laminar forced convection in a long pipe heated by uniform heat flux and subjected to a reciprocating flow of air. Transient fluid temperature variations in the two mixing chambers connected to both ends of the heated section were measured. These measurements were used as the thermal boundary conditions for the numerical simulation of the hydrodynamically and thermally developing reciprocating flow in the heated pipe. The coupled governing equations for time-dependent convective heat transfer in the fluid flow and conduction in the wall of the heated tube were solved numerically. The numerical results for time-resolved centerline fuid temperature, cycle-averaged wall temperature, and the space-cycle averaged Nusselt number are shown to be in good agreement with the experimental data. Based on the experimental data, a correlation equation is obtained for the cycle-space averaged Nusselt number in terms of appropriate dimensionless parameters for a laminar reciprocating flow of air in a long pipe with constant heat flux.


Author(s):  
Timo Saksala ◽  
Reijo Kouhia ◽  
Ahmad Mardoukhi ◽  
Mikko Hokka

This paper presents a numerical study on thermal jet drilling of granite rock that is based on a thermal spallation phenomenon. For this end, a numerical method based on finite elements and a damage–viscoplasticity model are developed for solving the underlying coupled thermo-mechanical problem. An explicit time-stepping scheme is applied in solving the global problem, which in the present case is amenable to extreme mass scaling. Rock heterogeneity is accounted for as random clusters of finite elements representing rock constituent minerals. The numerical approach is validated based on experiments on thermal shock weakening effect of granite in a dynamic Brazilian disc test. The validated model is applied in three-dimensional simulations of thermal jet drilling with a short duration (0.2 s) and high intensity (approx. 3 MW m −2 ) thermal flux. The present numerical approach predicts the spalling as highly (tensile) damaged rock. Finally, it was shown that thermal drilling exploiting heating-forced cooling cycles is a viable method when drilling in hot rock mass. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Fracture dynamics of solid materials: from particles to the globe’.


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