Flaw-tailored ECC enabled by pore optimization: A synergistic strategy for concurrent strength enhancement and strain hardening amplification
Date
2025
Authors
Fu, C.
Hu, Y.
Zhang, Y.
Zhuge, Y.
Gu, G.
Dong, B.
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Journal article
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Construction and Building Materials, 2025; 496(143810):143810-143810
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This study systematically investigates the pore structure optimization of Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) through air entraining agent (AEA) incorporation, addressing the critical trade-off between tensile ductility and mechanical strength. Experimental results demonstrate that a low AEA dosage (0.015 g/L) enhances compressive strength by 9.54 %, tensile strain capacity by 92.47 % and cracks number by 209.1 %. Despite high AEA concentrations will decrease the mechanical strength, the strain hardening and saturation cracking capacity of ECC incorporating AEA still significantly superior to control group by 63.44 % and 90.9 % respectively. Based cracking criteria, it can be found that ECC incorporating AEA can significantly optimize its flaws size distribution, resulting in high strain hardening capacity. Through the underlying mechanism analysis, it is found that the optimized pore spatial structure can take advantage of the stress concentration effect of pores to cause the deflection and bifurcation of cracks, thus significantly improving the multiple cracking and energy absorption capacity of ECC. This simple optimization method innovatively achieves both the effect of strengthening and toughening, which provides a novel reference for future research and application.
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Copyright 2025 Elsevier