Gas Flow in Realistic Cracks Representative of Concrete Fractures

Abstract

This work focuses on gas (air) flow through a model crack meant to represent a natural crack in concrete as accurately as possible. The purpose of the present study, which builds on previous works of the authors, is twofold: first, to highlight the test accuracy and second, to examine the impact of different crack geometries, relative to the same concrete formulation, on various aspects such as crack pressure distributions, the mass flow versus square pressure gradient relationship, and inlet and outlet pressure drops. The study reveals that while there is some variability in the results for a given crack geometry, this variability is relatively controlled, given the technical nature of the experiment. Additionally, the study shows that different crack geometries mainly affect results on small crack openings (smaller than 50 µm), whereas they remain negligible for those relative to larger openings (larger than 100 µm).