Abstract/Photo copyright of: Chung, S.-Y., Lehman, Christian, Elrahman, M. A. and Stephan, D.: Pore characteristics and their effects on the material properties of foamed concrete evaluated using micro-CT images and numerical ap-proaches
Foamed concrete contains numerous pores inside the material, and these pores are a significant factor determining the material characteristics. In particular, the pore distri-bution characteristics of foamed concrete significantly affect its thermal and mechani-cal properties. Therefore, an appropriate investigation is necessary for a more detailed understanding of foamed concrete. Here, a set of foamed concrete samples with differ-ent densities is used in order to investigate the density effects on the pore characteris-tics, as well as the physical properties of the materials. The pore distribution character-istics of these samples are investigated using an X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) imaging technique with probabilistic and quantitative methods. Using these methods, the anisotropy, the pore circularity factor and the relative density of cell thickness are examined. The thermal (thermal conductivity) and mechanical (directional modulus and strength) properties of each foamed specimen are computed using numer-ical simulations and compared with experimental results. From the obtained results, the effects of the pore sizes and shapes on the local and global properties of the foamed concrete are examined for developing advanced foamed concrete with lower thermal conductivity by minimizing the strength reduction.
