Subcritical Crack Growth in Cementitious Materials Subject to Chemomechanical Deterioration—Experimental Test Using Specimens of Negative Geometry

Knowledge of the subcritical crack growth (SCG) in cement-based materials subject to concurrent physical and chemical attacks is of great importance for understanding and mitigating the chemomechanical deterioration in concrete structural members. In this study, the SCG in hardened cement pastes is investigated experimentally by a novel test approach aided with microcharacterization. In the test, specimens of negative geometry are designed, which enable the use of load control to trigger stable crack propagation in hardened cement pastes. Multiple specimens, cast from the same batch of mixture, are exposed to the same chemical condition and loaded at the same age. With the aid of a high-resolution microscopy system, which is used to trace the crack tip, the average trend and the associated variation of the dependence of crack velocity v on the stress intensity factor K at the crack tip are obtained. Different from static fatigue, three distinctive regions are captured in the K–v curves of specimens experiencing chemomechanical deterioration. With the help of advanced techniques including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic-force microscopy (AFM), and Raman spectroscopy, the microstructure destruction and chemical composition change induced by the imposed chemomechanical attack are characterized at different stages. In addition to the physical insights for deeper understanding of the coupled effect of chemomechanical attack, these experimental results provide important macro- and microscopic benchmarks for the theoretical modeling and numerical investigation in the future studies.