Study on moisture transport in concrete in atmospheric environment

Moisture transport in concrete in atmospheric environment was studied in this paper. Based on the simplified formula of the thickness of the adsorbed layer, the pore-size distribution function of cement paste was calculated utilizing the water adsorption isotherms. Taking into consideration of the hysteresis effect in cement paste, the moisture diffusivity of cement paste was obtained by the integration of the pore-size distribution. Concrete is regarded as a two-phase composite with cement paste and aggregate, neglecting the moisture diffusivity of aggregate, then moisture diffusivity of concrete was evaluated using the composite theory. Finally, numerical simulation of humidity response during both wetting and drying process was carried out by the finite difference method of partial differential equation for moisture transport, and the numerical results well capture the trend of the measured data.