Influence of freeze–thaw cycles on mechanical properties of pervious concrete: From experimental studies to discrete element simulations

In this paper, pervious concrete (PC) was prepared using fly ash, granulated blast furnace slag, and rice husk ash as supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), and the mechanical properties, water permeability, and freeze–thaw durability of permeable concrete were mainly investigated. Discrete elements (DEM) were used to mimic the freeze–thaw cycle process of pervious concrete to assess better how freeze–thaw cycles affect the mechanical properties of pervious concrete. To allow water particles of various sizes to fill the model pores, new algorithms were developed. However, since some connected pores release some of the pressure generated by water expansion when undergoing FTCs, two different water particles must be defined. Meanwhile, an elastoplastic parallel bond contact model (EPPBM) was created to account for any residual strain brought on by water freeze–thaw expansion at the aggregate bond. Through experiments, it was determined that adding SCMs increased the compressive strength of the pervious concrete by 1.22 %, 15.32 %, 32.34 %, and 35.20 % at 7, 28, 56, and 90 days compared to the control group. The microstructure of the hydrated calcium silicate (C-S-H) gel could be relatively dense by SEM. The width of the interfacial transition zone (ITZ) was found to have been effectively shortened by further scanning using EDS. As a result, in the tests of mechanical properties after freeze–thaw cycles (25, 50, 75, and 100 cycles), there was a significant improvement in the loss of strength compared to the control group, which was 2.13 %, 6.91 %, 10.04 %, and 17.40 %, respectively. Using numerical simulation to correct the functional correlation between FTCs and the mechanical characteristics of permeable concrete, the trend essentially aligns with the experiment's results, demonstrating the model's viability. Acoustic emission monitoring of model rupture location and strain energy loss after FTCs were utilized and the effect of different porosity and initial uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) on the attenuation constant of the freeze–thaw resistance of pervious concrete was analyzed. The decay constant of UCS increased with increasing porosity and elastic modulus while decreasing with increasing initial UCS. Therefore, the decay constant of UCS and elastic modulus after arbitrary FTCs can be easily estimated using the initial parameters of the pervious concrete.