Fatigue behavior of polymer-modified porous concretes

Abstract

Highly permeable materials provide drainage and noise-absorption properties that are useful in pavement top layers. In such porous concretes, the voids reduce the mechanical integrity, which may have to be compensated for with the incorporation of nonconventional components, such as polymers. A basic property needed for the design of pavements is the fatigue behavior of the material, which has not been studied thoroughly for polymer-modified porous concretes. This paper presents experimental results of fatigue tests in compression in terms of Wöhler curves for four porous concretes (two of them with polymer). It is seen that the polymer-modified porous concretes exhibit better fatigue behavior than those without polymer. However, the improvement decreases for low values of the stress level, S, and appears to be negligible for the case of traffic loads in main roads or highways (number of load cycles, N > 10 6). Additionally, the deformation and internal temperature evolutions have been monitored, and it is concluded that their trends are similar to those of conventional concrete, with temperature increases significantly higher than in conventional concretes.