Study on the Binary Hydraulic Kinetics Model of Glass Powder-Cement: Numerical Simulation

As supplementary cementitious material, glass powder has been widely used in concrete, and many investigations on the mechanical properties of glass powder concrete have been carried out. However, there is a lack of investigations on the binary hydration kinetics model of glass powder-cement. Based on the pozzolanic reaction mechanism of glass powder, the purpose of this paper is to establish a theoretical model of the binary hydraulic kinetics model of glass powder-cement to investigate the effect of glass powder on cement hydration. The hydration process of glass powder-cement mixed cementitious materials with different glass powder contents (e.g., 0, 20%, 50%) was simulated using the finite element method (FEM). The numerical simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental data of hydration heat in the literature, which verifies the reliability of the proposed model. The results show that the glass powder can dilute and accelerate the hydration of cement. Compared to the sample with 5% glass powder content, the hydration degree of the glass powder decreased by 42.3% for the sample with 50% glass powder content. More importantly, the reactivity of the glass powder decreases exponentially with the increase in the glass particle size. In addition, the reactivity of the glass powder tends to be stable when the glass particle size is greater than 90 μm. With the increase in the replacement rate of the glass powder, the reactivity of the glass powder decreases. When the replacement rate of the glass powder is greater than 45%, the concentration of CH reaches a peak at the early stage of the reaction. The research in this paper reveals the hydration mechanism of glass powder and provides a theoretical basis for the application of glass powder in concrete.