Freezing of partially saturated air-entrained concrete: A multiphase description of the hygro-thermo-mechanical behaviour

Even though air-entrained concrete is usually used for concrete structures located in cold climates that are exposed to wet environments, frost damage is frequently detected during inspections. However, it is often hard to assess the extent and severity of the damage and, thus, there is a need for better tools and aids that can complement already established assessment methods. Several studies have successfully shown that models based on poromechanics and a multiphase approach can be used to describe the freezing behaviour of air-entrained concrete. However, these models are often limited to the scale of the air pore system and, hence, hard to use in applications involving real structures. This study proposes a hygro-thermo-mechanical multiphase model which describes the freezing behaviour of partially saturated air-entrained concrete on the structural scale. The model is implemented in a general FE-code and two numerical examples are presented to validate and show the capabilities of the model. The first concerns a series of experimental tests of air-entrained cement pastes, whereas the second aims to show the capability of the model to account for an initial non-uniform distribution of moisture. While the model predictions underestimate the magnitude of the measured strains, the results still show that the model can capture the general freezing behaviour observed in the experimental tests on the structural scale. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the model is capable of describing freezing induced deformations caused by non-uniform moisture distributions.