Numerical Modeling of Water Transport in Ultra-High-Performance Fiber-Reinforced Concrete

Chloride induced corrosion has been an important issue for many reinforced concrete structures. Over the past decades, numerous transport models has been developed to simulate the process. Most existing transport models focused and are validated only on well-known traditional materials such as regular concrete and cement paste. New materials such as Ultra-High-Performance Concrete (UHPC) and High-Performance Fiber-Reinforced Concrete (UHPFRC), however, are less studied from the numerical perspective. The objective of this study is to propose a new transport model for UHPC and UHPFRC to simulate the water transport process in these less permeable materials. The model has been implemented in an in-house finite element method (FEM) software TransChlor2D and validated with experimental results from Dynamic Vapor Sorption (DVS) test on crushed UHPFRC samples subjected to dry-wet cycles. The research provides a 2D numerical model allowing to estimate durability of UHPC and UHPFRC structures under realistic boundary conditions.