Fracture toughness of high performance concrete subjected to elevated temperatures Part 2 The effects of heating rate, exposure time and cooling rate

In this study, the fracture toughness $K_{IC}$ of high performance concrete (HPC) was investigated by conducting three-point bending tests on a total of 240 notched beams of $500mm{\times}100mm{\times}100mm$ subjected to heating temperatures up to $450^{\circ}C$ with exposure times up to 16 hours and various heating and cooling rates. For a heating rate of $3^{\circ}C/min$, $K_{IC}$ for the hot concrete sustained a monotonic decrease trend with the increasing heating temperature and exposure time, from $1.389MN/m^{1.5}$ at room temperature to $0.942MN/m^{1.5}$ at $450^{\circ}C$ for 4-hour exposure time, $0.906MN/m^{1.5}$ for 8-hour exposure time and $0.866MN/m^{1.5}$ for 16-hour exposure time. For the cold concrete, $K_{IC}$ sustained a two-stage decrease trend, dropping slowly with the heating temperature up to $150^{\circ}C$ and then rapidly down to $0.869MN/m^{1.5}$ at $450^{\circ}C$ for 4-hour exposure time, $0.812MN/m^{1.5}$ for 8-hour exposure time and $0.771MN/m^{1.5}$ for 16-hour exposure time. In general, the $K_{IC}$ values for the hot concrete up to $200^{\circ}C$ were larger than those for the cold concrete, and an inverse trend was observed thereafter. The increase in heating rate slightly decreased $K_{IC}$, and at $450^{\circ}C$ $K_{IC}$ decreased from $0.893MN/m^{1.5}$ for $1^{\circ}C/min$ to $0.839MN/m^{1.5}$ for $10^{\circ}C/min$ for the hot concrete and from $0.792MN/m^{1.5}$ for $1^{\circ}C/min$ to $0.743MN/m^{1.5}$ for $10^{\circ}C/min$ for the cold concrete after an exposure time of 16 hours. The increase in cooling rate also slightly decreased $K_{IC}$, and at $450^{\circ}C$ $K_{IC}$ decreased from $0.771MN/m^{1.5}$ for slow cooling to $0.739MN/m^{1.5}$ for fast cooling after an exposure time of 16 hours. The fracture energy-based fracture toughness $K_{IC}$' was also assessed, and similar decrease trends with the heating temperature and exposure time existed for both hot and cold concretes. The relationships of two fracture toughness parameters with the weight loss and the modulus of rapture were also evaluated.