Spalling and pore pressure in HPC at high temperatures

Abstract

High-performance concrete (HPC) are subject to spalling under certain thermal and mechanical conditions. Spalling results mainly from two processes: a “thermo-mechanical” process in which the stress originates in the gradients of thermal deformation within the material, and a thermo-hydral process where spalling is due to the build-up of gas pressure fields in the porous network. This paper deals with the thermo-hydral process. An original device was designed in order to make simultaneous measurements of pressure and temperature at various positions in a concrete specimen (30×30×12 cm 3) heated on one face up to 800°C. The specimen was also continuously weighed during the tests, thus, the mass loss, resulting mainly from water transport and loss, was recorded. This campaign was carried out on an ordinary concrete (OC) and a HPC (90 MPa). As expected, the pressure peaks were much higher than in HPC (40 bars) than in OC (20 bars). In HPC, these pressures exceeded the saturated vapor pressure. It is demonstrated that the thermal expansion of liquid water and the transport of water towards the inner part of the specimen play a significant role on the build-up of gas pressure. The experimental correlation between the pressure peaks and the plateau in the temperature curves confirmed the hypothesis that the drying front is preceded by a quasi-saturated layer that acts as a moisture clog.