Mesostructure of Foamed Cement Paste and Its Influence on Macromechanical Behavior
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 33, Issue 6
Abstract
Foamed cement paste has been used increasingly as a backfill material in geotechnical engineering applications, such as embankments, tunnels, and retaining walls. However, limited studies have focused on the influence of void structures of the foamed cement paste on its macromechanical behavior. This study used X-ray computed tomography (X-CT) to investigate the void structures of foamed cement paste and their influence on the macromechanical properties (strength and modulus). The test results showed that the void volumes had a unimodal distribution. The reduction in the density of the specimen indicated more large voids and a wider distribution of void sizes; however, surrounded-type voids were dominant in terms of percentage of total volume. The sphericity of the voids ranged from 0.1 to 0.6, indicating their highly irregular shapes. Sensitivity analysis showed that the volume of the surrounded-type voids played a primary role in the compressive behavior of the foamed cement paste, the void shape was the secondary influence factor, and the void size was the tertiary influence factor.
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Data Availability Statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors appreciate the financial support provided by the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grant Nos. 41972272 and 41772281) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 22120180106) for the research presented in this paper.
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Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 33 • Issue 6 • June 2021
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© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 1, 2020
Accepted: Nov 9, 2020
Published online: Mar 27, 2021
Published in print: Jun 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Aug 27, 2021
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