Durability evaluation and lifetime prediction of recycled coarse aggregate self-compacting concrete after freeze-thaw and sulfate erosion coupling

Abstract

This paper aims to study the durability of recycled coarse aggregate self-compacting concrete (RCASCC) after being subjected to freeze-thaw and sulfate coupling. The durability comprehensive evaluation index of RCASCC based on the entropy weight method was defined, and the variation law of the durability comprehensive evaluation index concerning RCA substitution rate, freeze-thaw environment, and coupling frequency was obtained. GM (1, 1) model based on grey system theory was used to evaluate the durability of RCASCC under the coupling effects of freeze-thaw and sulfate attack. The results show that there are some differences in the accuracy of the four GM (1, 1) models. It is recommended that the EGM model can be used to predict the durability of the RCASCC under the coupled effects of freeze-thaw and sulfate erosion. Moreover, the working life of RCASCC under the coupling effects in the outdoor environments of northeast, north, and northwest China was calculated, when the comprehensive evaluation index of durability decreases to 75% as the failure criterion. A multi-criteria analysis employing TOPSIS and VIKOR methods was conducted to evaluate the durability of RCASCC under these coupling effects. A multi criteria analysis was conducted on the durability of RCASCC under the coupling effects of freeze-thaw and sulfate erosion using TOPSIS and VIKOR methods. Under these two rankings, the splitting tensile strength is the index that changes the most after coupling effects, while the compressive strength changes relatively little. The importance of dynamic elastic modulus and weight is different due to different materials and evaluation methods. RC100-H typically exhibits the largest variation, while NC-H and RC50-NM typically exhibit smaller variations.