Seawater sea-sand engineered/strain-hardening cementitious composites (ECC/SHCC): Assessment and modeling of crack characteristics

• Published in: Cement and concrete research Vol. 140; p. 106292
• Main Authors: Huang, Bo-Tao, Wu, Jia-Qi, Yu, Jing, Dai, Jian-Guo, Leung, Christopher K.Y., Li, Victor C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elmsford Elsevier Ltd 01.02.2021; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Coastal structures; Composite materials; Crack assessment; Crack characteristics; Engineered cementitious composite (ECC); Mechanical properties; Non-corrosive reinforcement; Probabilistic modeling; Probabilistic models; Sand; Sand & gravel; Sea-sand; Seawater; Statistical analysis; Strain hardening; Strain-hardening cementitious composite (SHCC); Tensile properties; Tensile strain; Probabilistic modeling; Strain-hardening cementitious composite (SHCC); Crack assessment; Non-corrosive reinforcement; Crack characteristics; Sea-sand; Engineered cementitious composite (ECC); Seawater
• ISSN: 0008-8846; 1873-3948
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cemconres.2020.106292

Seawater sea-sand Engineered Cementitious Composites (SS-ECC) is a new version of ECC for marine constructions facing the scarcity of freshwater and river/manufactured sand. This study aims to assess and model the crack characteristics of SS-ECC, which are critical for its applications with non-corrosive reinforcements. The influence of sea-sand size, fiber length and fiber dosage on the crack characteristics of SS-ECC was explored. A five-dimensional representation was proposed to assess the overall performance of SS-ECC, by comprehensively considering both the crack characteristics (i.e., crack width and its variation) and the mechanical properties (i.e., compressive and tensile properties). A probabilistic model was also proposed to describe the stochastic nature and evolution of crack width, and it can be used to estimate the critical tensile strain on SS-ECC for a given crack-width limit and cumulative probability. The findings and proposed methods can facilitate the design of SS-ECC in marine and coastal structures. •A probabilistic model was proposed to model the crack width evolution of SS-ECC at different strain levels.•The Weibull distribution fit the crack width distribution better than the log-normal distribution.•A 5-D representation was proposed to assess the SS-ECC by considering both cracking and mechanical performance.•Larger sea-sand size and lower fiber dosage led to larger crack widths in SS-ECC under the same tensile strain.•18-mm PE fiber led to larger crack widths in SS-ECC at strain >2%, due to a large fraction of fiber rupture.