The application of rheological concepts on the high performance concretes technology

Author(s)

Alessandra Lorenzetti de Castro

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Carlos.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Física de São Carlos (IFSC/BT)
• Defense date: 2007-01-29

Examining board members

Jefferson Benedicto Libardi Liborio; Mounir Khalil El Debs; Paulo Roberto do Lago Helene; Vitor Carlos Pandolfeli; Ercio Thomaz

• Advisor: Jefferson Benedicto Libardi Liborio

Abstract

From the rheological point of view, the fresh concrete flows as a liquid. In such case, its fresh behavior should be studied from the concepts of rheology, the science which concerns the study of deformation and flow of a fluid under stress influence. The well designed structures, depending on the process considered in their production, are performed in a very short time after the mixture of the materials that will constitute the concretes. Thus, the concrete workability is an important parameter to be studied, even for facilitating the material placement and for the decisions related with the method of this process. Traditionally, the concrete workability is associated to its consistency, expressed in terms of the slump value measured by the slump test that, in spite of being a quite used test, does not quantify it totally. It happens because the concrete behaves as a Bingham fluid, being described by two rheological parameters: the yield stress and the plastic viscosity. Thus, the present research determines some measure parameters from rheological concepts to verify the behavior of some types of fresh high performance concrete (with silica fume addition). For this, both traditional test methods - slump test and Vebe consistometer - and more recent equipments - rheometer - were used. A modification of the traditional slump test was also used as an attempt to simplify the determination of the rheological parameters that describe the fresh concretes behaviors. The capacity of the concretes flow under the influence of their own weight was evaluated by the L-box test. The identification of the concretes rheological behavior was made with a rheometer. The concretes workability was evaluated from test methods that measure the two rheological parameters and its loss over time was associated to the evolution of the measured parameters. In spite of being classified as fluid mixtures, none of the concretes presented enough flow to describe it as a self-compacting material; however they presented a good flow under vibration energy. The concrete rheological behavior was identified as being similar to a Bingham fluid. The workability, as its loss over time, was associated to the evolution of the rheological parameters: an increase of the yield stress (or flow resistance) was observed, while the plastic viscosity (or torque viscosity) stayed practically constant during the 60 minutes in which the behavior was followed. It is concluded that for the high performance concretes workability, there are other several important factors to be considered in the research pursuit, which should consider the parameters associated to the material\'s production, transport and placement. (AU)