Experimental and statistical study on the irregularity of carbonation depth of cement mortar under supercritical condition

The heterogeneity of a cement-based material results in a random spatial distribution of carbonation depth. Currently, there is a lack of both experimental and numerical investigations aiming at a statistical understanding of this important phenomenon. This paper presents both experimental and numerical supercritical carbonation test results of cement mortar blocks. The carbonation depths are measured along the carbonation boundary by the proposed rapid image processing technique, which are then statistically studied by calculating, e.g., their probability density and power spectral density (PSD). The results indicate that the distribution of the carbonation depth can be approximately represented by a lognormal distribution function and the PSD has quantitative correlation with some of the statistic parameters used in the simulations. In particular, the effects of the autocorrelation lengths and the coefficient of variation of porosity, which are used to define the random porosity field, on the irregularity of carbonation depth are analyzed numerically in details and validated by experimental results. The study has shown that using a random field of porosity with due consideration of spatial correlation and variance, the irregularity of carbonation depth can be realistically captured by the numerical model. The numerical results confirm that lognormal distributions represent the random nature of carbonation depth well and the average and variance of the irregular carbonation depth increase with the increase of carbonation time, autocorrelation length and coefficient of variation of porosity. The study also offers a potential method to numerically calibrate some of the statistic parameters required by a numerical carbonation model through comparing the PSD with that from experimental tests. Overall the methodology adopted in the paper can provide a foundation for future investigations on probability analysis of carbonation depth and other similar work based on multi-scale and -physics modelling.