An investigation into flow properties of self‐healing agents in damaged zones of cementitious materials

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the experimental and numerical study of capillarity in cementitious materials. Capillarity is a phenomenon that has been researched by many; however, literature shows few studies completed on capillarity in cementitious materials, in particular discrete cracks. This thesis presents experimental and numerical data to further those areas in research that rely on capillary flow mechanisms, such as the deterioration process in concrete and the flow of healing agents in self‐healing cementitious materials. Experimental simulations of capillary flow through five different crack configurations in cementitious materials have been studied. Alongside the experimental work capillary flow theory has been used to validate the experimental results with the use of numerical formulae. This thesis presents details of the Lucas‐Washburn equation traditionally used in capillarity and glue flow theory in chapter 5 and the experimental results alongside the theory are used to assess the performance of the numerical models. Some of the conclusions that have been made are listed below however, a more in depth view is shown in chapter 4: • results looking at the effect of crack configuration show that the crack path does not have a large effect on capillarity; • specimen age of mortar was another area that was looked at and results and readings do show that the rate of rise is affected by age; • the difference between the healing agents used in experiments does show that viscosity does play a large part in rate of capillarity and • specimen saturation, one of the parameters also touched on in this thesis does show that the more saturated the specimen, the higher the flow of the healing agent. iv Conclusions are made and are presented in chapter 6 based on the analysis of the experimental results and the validation of the numerical solution. Comparisons between the experimental work and numerical solution show that the numerical solution for various crack configurations is reliable to determine the glue flow theory for healing agents