Influence of Steel Slag-Superfine Blast Furnace Slag Composite Mineral Admixture on the Properties of Mortar and Concrete

A composite mineral admixture was prepared by steel slag and superfine blast furnace slag. The influence of superfine blast furnace slag content of the composite mixture on the mortar and concrete was investigated. The results show that the composite mineral admixture may decrease the strength of concrete at the early age but improve the strength development over time. Increasing the content of superfine blast furnace slag can reduce the degradation of the early strength. The reduction of the autogenous shrinkage and adiabatic temperature rise is significant when the composite mineral admixture is added. The reduction is more obvious when the water-to-solid ratio (w/s) is low. The results show that with steel slag and superfine blast furnace slag playing as complementary parts in the composite mineral admixture, it can be used as an effective substitute of cement.

Effects of Different Content of Phosphorus Slag Composite Concrete: Heat Evolution, Sulphate-Corrosion Resistance and Volume Deformation

Phosphorus slag (PS) and limestone (LS) composite (PLC) were prepared with a mass ratio of 1:1. The effects of the content of PLC and the water/binder ratio on the mechanical properties, durability and dry shrinkage of concrete were studied via compressive strength, electric flux, sulfate dry/wet cycle method, saturated drainage method, isothermal calorimeter, adiabatic temperature rise instrument and shrinkage deformation instrument. The results show that PLC can greatly reduce the adiabatic temperature rise of concrete. The adiabatic temperature rise is 55 °C with 33 wt.% PLC, 10 °C lower than that of the control sample. The addition in the content of PLC does not affect the long-term strength of concrete. When the water/binder ratio decreases by 0.1–0.15, the long-term strength of concrete with PLC increases by about 10%, compared with the control group. At the age of 360 days, the chloride permeability of L-11 (i.e., the content of PLC was 20%, the water/binder ratio was 0.418) and L-22 (i.e., the content of PLC was 33%, the water/binder ratio was 0.39) decrease to the “very low” grade. The strength loss rate of L-11 and L-22 after 150 sulfate dry/wet cycles is about 18.5% and 19%, respectively, which is 60% of the strength loss rate of the control sample. The drying shrinkage of L-11 and L-22 reduces by 4.7% and 9.5%, respectively, indicating that PLC can also reduce the drying shrinkage.

Early Cracking Risk Prediction Model of Concrete under the Action of Multifield Coupling

Through the adiabatic temperature rise experiment, the adiabatic temperature rise of concrete with hydration time was recorded. Based on the maturity degree theory, the relationship between the hydration degree of the concrete and the equivalent age was determined. Then, the hydration degree prediction model of the concrete's early elastic modulus and tensile strength was established. The local temperature and humidity of the concrete were measured by the shrinkage experiment, and based on the capillary water tension theory, a temperature-humidity prediction model for the early shrinkage of the concrete was designed. According to the ratio of the creep deformation and elastic deformation of concrete which were obtained through the restraint ring experiment, a model for predicting the early creep coefficient of concrete was proposed. Based on the coupling effect of “hydration-temperature-humidity,” a prediction model of early cracking risk coefficient of concrete under multifield coupling was proposed. Finally, several groups of slab cracking frame experiments were carried out, and the cracking risk prediction results of concrete were consistent with the actual situation, which indicated the correctness of the early cracking risk prediction model of concrete.

Influence and Mechanism Research of Hydration Heat Inhibitor on Low-Heat Portland Cement

A kind of microcapsule sustained-release–type hydration heat inhibitor (MSR) was prepared. The effect of MSR on semi-adiabatic temperature rise, setting time, and strength of low-heat Portland cement was investigated. Microcalorimetry, XRD, SEM, and TG-DSC were used to investigate the mechanism of MSR on hydration of low-heat Portland cement. The results showed that the MSR had good regulating effect on hydration of low-heat Portland cement. When the dosage of MSR was 0.3%, the heat release rate decreased by 10% and the peak temperature decreased by 52%. The 3D compressive strength decreased by 50%, and the 28-day strength was the same as control. The MSR can delay the hydration of low-heat Portland cement by inhibiting the heat release rate of C2S and C3S minerals.

Study on the Crack Resistance Properties of Manufactured Sand Concrete

In order to solve the problem of workability and durability of concrete caused by poor particle shape and morphology of manufactured sand and high content of stone powder, which leads to crack problems of concrete, the tensile strength, elastic modulus, shrinkage performance and adiabatic temperature rise performance of manufactured sand concrete were studied in this paper. And the cracking risk factor (the reciprocal of the anti cracking safety factor) of the concrete with the special admixtures and the crack resistant functional materials was calculated by according to GB 50496-2018. The experimental results show that the elastic modulus and tensile strength at the age of 28 d of the test concrete are increased from 31.0 GPa to 34.6 GPA and 2.91 MPa to 4.23 MPa, respectively. The shrinkage performance and adiabatic temperature rise of the concrete are reduced from 98 με to 65 με and 38.9°C to 38.4°C, respectively. The risk factors of surface and center crack resistance of mass concrete floor are 0.52 and 0.75, so the concrete under inspection will not crack.

Kinetic Model of Adiabatic Temperature Rise of Mass Concrete

The adiabatic temperature rise model of mass concrete is very important for temperature field simulation, same to crack resistance capacity and temperature control of concrete structures. In this research, a thermal kinetics analysis was performed to study the exothermic hydration reaction process of concrete, and an adiabatic temperature rise model was proposed. The proposed model considers influencing factors, including initial temperature, temperature history, activation energy, and the completion degree of adiabatic temperature rise and is theoretically mature and definitive in physical meaning. It was performed on different initial temperatures for adiabatic temperature rise test; the data were employed in a regression analysis of the model parameters and initial conditions. The same function was applied to describe the dynamic change of the adiabatic temperature rise rates for different initial temperatures and different temperature changing processes and subsequently employed in a finite element analysis of the concrete temperature field. The test results indicated that the proposed model adequately fits the data of the adiabatic temperature rise test, which included different initial temperatures, and accurately predicts the changing pattern of adiabatic temperature rise of concrete at different initial temperatures. Compared with the results using the traditional age-based adiabatic temperature rise model, the results of a calculation example revealed that the simulated calculation results using the proposed model can accurately reflect the temperature change pattern of concrete in heat dissipation conditions.

Ignition–extinction analysis of catalytic reactor models

A detailed analysis of the ignition–extinction and hysteresis behavior of the two widely used catalytic reactor models (packed-bed and monolith) for the case of a single exothermic reaction is presented. First, limiting models are used to determine the minimum adiabatic temperature rise and/or catalyst activity needed to observe hysteresis behavior. Next, explicit expressions are provided for estimating the feed temperature or space time at ignition (light-off) and extinction (blow-out) as a function of the adiabatic temperature rise (or inlet concentration of limiting reactant), effective thermal conductivity, time and length scales (reactor, tube/channel diameter, effective diffusion length and pore size), catalyst activity (or dilution) and heat loss. It is shown that various limiting reactor models such as the thin-bed, long-bed, lumped thermal, adiabatic and strongly cooled cases that are defined in terms of various inter- and intraphase heat and mass dispersion time scales can be used to derive scaling relations that are useful in predicting the ignition/extinction loci for both laboratory scale (with heat exchange) and large scale (near adiabatic) reactors.