• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.86 no.6
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• pp.779-791
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• 2023

Long-termly used in water supply, an underground concrete pipe is easily subjected to the coupled action of pressure loading and flowing water, which can cause the chemo-mechanical damage of the pipe, resulting in its premature failure and lifetime reduction. Based on the leaching characteristics and damage mechanism of concrete pipe, this paper proposes a coupled chemo-mechanical damage and failure model of underground concrete pipe for water supply, including a calcium leaching model, mechanical damage equation and a failure criterion. By using the model, a numerical simulation is performed to analyze the failure process of underground concrete pipe, such as the time-varying calcium concentration in concrete, the thickness variation of pipe wall, the evolution of chemo-mechanical damage, the distribution of concrete stress on the pipe and the lifetime of the pipe. Results show that, the failure of the pipe is a coupled chemo-mechanical damage process companied with calcium leaching. During its damage and failure, the concentrations of calcium phase in concrete decrease obviously with the time, and it can cause an increase in the chemo-mechanical damage of the pipe, while the leaching and abrasion induced by flowing water can lead to the boundary movement and wall thickness reduction of the pipe, and it results in the stress redistribution on the pipe section, a premature failure and lifetime reduction of the pipe.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.143-152
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• 2017

This paper has numerically investigated the changes of loading-induced stress in concrete with the corrosion time in the sulfate-containing environment. Firstly, based on Fick's law and reaction kinetics, a diffusion-reaction equation of sulfate ion in concrete is proposed, and it is numerically solved to obtain the spatial and temporal distribution of sulfate ion concentration in concrete by the finite difference method. Secondly, by fitting the existed experimental data of concrete in sodium sulfate solutions, the chemical damage of concrete associated with sulfate ion concentration and corrosion time is quantitatively presented. Thirdly, depending on the plastic-damage mechanics, while considering the influence of sulfate attack on concrete properties, a simplified chemo-mechanical damage model, with stress-based plasticity and strain-driven damage, for concrete under axial loading and sulfate attack is determined by introducing the chemical damage degree. Finally, an axially compressed concrete prism immersed into the sodium sulfate solution is regarded as an object to investigate the time-varying stress in concrete subjected to the couplings of axial loading and sulfate attack.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.131-150
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• 2004

We present in this work a coupled phenomenological chemo-mechanical model that represents the degradation of concrete-like materials. The chemical behaviour is described by the nowadays well known simplified calcium leaching approach. And the mechanical damage behaviour is described by a continuum damage model which involves the gradient of the damage quantity. The coupled nonlinear problem at hand is addressed within the context of the finite element method. For the equation governing the calcium dissolution-diffusion part of the problem, special care is taken to treat the highly nonlinear calcium conductivity and solid calcium functions. The algorithmic design is based on a Newton-type iterative scheme where use is made of a recently proposed relaxed linearization procedure. And for the equation governing the damage part of the problem, an augmented Lagrangian formulation is used to take into account the damage irreversibility constraint. Finally, numerical simulations are compared with experimental results on cement paste.