Experimental Study on Damage Evaluation, Pore Structure and Impact Tensile Behavior of 10-Year-Old Concrete Cores After Exposure to High Temperatures

Abstract High temperatures impose a negative effect on the mechanical properties of concrete. An experimental setup designed by the theory of nonlinear resonance vibration, the method of mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) and split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) were used to test damage, porosity and mechanical properties of the pre-heated Brazilian discs of 10-year-old concrete respectively. According to the nondestructive test, the hysteretic nonlinearity parameters β_h became larger as the temperature went up. The damage calculated by β_h, which was 0, 0.57, 0.88 and 0.95 at 20 °C, 200 °C, 400 °C and 600 °C respectively, could be fitted by a power function. Based on MIP, the compound lognormal distribution model was used to simulate the pore size distributions. The quantitative relationship between porosity and damage was established by a power function, with the porosities of 13.96% at 20 °C, 15.77% at 200 °C, 19.17% at 400 °C and 20.22% at 600 °C. Finally, by the method of impact splitting tensile tests under gas pressures of 0.3 MPa, 0.4 MPa and 0.5 MPa, which represented impact velocity of 7.11 m/s, 10.26 m/s and 13.02 m/s respectively, the dynamic tensile strengths were obtained and the quantitative relationship between damage and macroscopic splitting tensile strength was established and the average value of exponential parameter b was 0.281.