dc.description.abstract | Concrete is a construction material which service life can be significantly reduced with the
presence of cracks when concrete is exposed to aggressive agents such as chlorides. The
current service life models for concrete do not account for cracks when modelling service
life of concrete structures. In this thesis, moisture transport in concrete with a crack and
aggregates was modelled numerically using finite element analysis. The numerical model was
applied to a wedge spitting test geometry and tested against experimental data, and was used
to identify how the crack and aggregates influence moisture ingress. The numerical model was
able to model the ingress extend in vertical and lateral directions with a very good
agreement with the experimental data, both for the un-cracked and cracked state. The moisture
distribution was more accurately modelled with the heterogeneous models including aggregates
compared to the homogenous models without aggregates. By observing the behavior of the
numerical model when varying the number of solutions that is interpolated and averaged to
give rise to the heterogeneous models including aggregates, it was found that the
heterogeneous models converge towards the homogenous models, when the number of interpolated
solutions that are included go towards infinity. | |