Effect of damage on permeability and hygro-thermal behaviour of HPCs at elevated temperatures: Part 1. Experimental results

This paper presents an analysis of some experimental results concerning micro-structural tests, permeability measurements and strain-stress tests of four types of High-Performance Concrete, exposed to elevated temperatures (up to 700 degrees C). These experimental results, obtained within the "HITECO" research programme are discussed and interpreted in the context of a recently developed mathematical model of hygro-thermal behaviour and degradation of concrete at high temperature, which is briefly presented in the Part 2 paper (Gawin, et al. 2005). Correlations between concrete permeability and porosity microstructure, as well as between damage and cracks' volume, are found. An approximate decomposition of the thermally induced material damage into two parts, a chemical one related to cement dehydration process, and a thermal one due to micro-cracks' development caused by thermal strains at micro- and meso-scale, is performed. Constitutive relationships describing influence of temperature and material damage upon its intrinsic permeability at high temperature for 4 types of HPC are deduced. In the Part 11 of this paper (Gawin, et al. 2005) effect of two different damage-permeability coupling formulations on the results of computer simulations concerning hygro-thermo-mechanical performance of concrete wall during standard fire, is numerically analysed.