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Nanomechanical Properties of Geopolymer/Cement Matrix in Recycled Aggregate Concrete
Zhen Liu1, Hui Peng2, Chunsheng Cai1
1Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge 70803, United States.
Abstract:
The numerical simulation of concrete at small scales often requires the knowledge of the mechanical properties of the constitutive phases. To obtain more information to serve as the inputs in numerical simulation, an experimental investigation was conducted to characterize the nanomechanical properties of geopolymer/cement matrix in full-green recycled aggregate concrete (RAC). A two-step mixing procedure was applied to prepare RAC samples. Two water/cement (w/c) ratios were employed for the geopolymeric RAC (GRAC) to investigate the influence of the w/c ratio on nanomechanical properties of geopolymer matrix in RAC. By the grid nanoindentation technique, it was found that the geopolymer matrix in GRAC has an elastic modulus of 13.54 GPa and 10.38 GPa for the w/c ratio of 0.4 and 0.45, respectively. The cement matrix in the RAC (w/c ratio of 0.5) has an elastic modulus of 20.38 GPa.
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