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Detecting microstructural changes in concrete conditioned under thermo-mechanical loading using x-ray computed tomography



Author(s): R.C. Stein, M. Petkovski, D.L. Engelberg, N.C. Hyatt, P.J. Withers, T. Lowe
Paper category: Conference
Book title: 2nd International conference on Microstructural-related Durability of Cementitious Composites
Editor(s): Guang Ye, K. Van Breugel, Wei Sun, Changwen Miao
Print ISBN: 978-2-35158-129-2
e-ISBN: 978-2-35158-123-0
Publisher: RILEM Publications SARL
Pages: 665-673
Total Pages: 8
Language: English


Abstract: 
The combined action of thermal and mechanical loading in nuclear applications can affect the pore structure of concrete. It is important to characterise these changes in order to understand the effects they may have on material strength and durability. Common methods of microstructural analysis such as electron microscopy can fail to capture representative data. To overcome this, 3D X-ray Computed Tomography (XCT) has been used to investigate microstructural changes in concrete specimens from a research program on Advanced Gascooled Reactor (AGR) pressure vessels which were subjected to hydrostatic mechanical loading and thermal treatment. Cylindrical cores extracted from the specimens were characterised non- destructively using XCT at the Henry Moseley X-ray Imaging Facility
(HMXIF), University of Manchester. Analysis of the reconstructed XCT data for 14.6 μm resolution scans has revealed significant changes in the pore size distribution of heated specimens with respect to that of unconditioned control specimens. Whilst changes in pore size distribution due to hydrostatic mechanical load cannot be clearly identified, those specimens conditioned under combined thermo mechanical loading experienced a greater change than those conditioned using thermal treatment only.


Online publication: 2013
Publication Type: full_text
Public price (Euros): 0.00


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