A multiphase micromechanical model for unsaturated concrete repaired by electrochemical deposition method with the bonding effects

Abstract

Most concrete structures repaired by the electrochemical deposition method are not fully saturated and the healing interfaces are not always perfect in reality. To demonstrate these issues, micromechanical models are presented for unsaturated concrete repaired by electrochemical deposition method with the healing interfacial transition zone based on our latest work. The repaired unsaturated concrete is represented as a multiphase composite made up of the water, unsaturated pores, intrinsic concrete, deposition products and the healing interfacial transition zone between the latter two components. The equivalent particle, matrix and composite for repaired unsaturated concrete are obtained by modifying the differential-scheme and the generalized self-consistent method. Modifications are utilized to rationalize the differential-scheme based estimations by taking into the water (including further hydration and viscosity effects), interfacial transition zone and the shapes of the pores into considerations. Furthermore, our predictions are compared with those of the existing models and available experimental results, thus illustrating the feasibility and capability of the proposed micromechanical framework.