One century of theoretical and applied mechanics of concrete and stone materials permeability. What have we learned?

One century of theoretical and applied mechanics of concrete and stone materials permeability. What have we learned?

Michela Monaco, Roberto Serpieri

Abstract. Periodic and non-routine inspections on buildings, infrastructures, and sites of historical or architectural interest frequently involve a necessary deepening of the knowledge of natural or artificial stone materials of the built heritage. Insight into stone materials is of particular relevance when the problem is approached of fine-tuning best practices for assessment and maintenance within Life Cycle Assessment methodologies, in the light of an increased awareness that social, infrastructural and environmental issues and policies cannot be faced by single compartments but need comprehensive evaluation. Permeability has been early recognized as a basic property for the assessment of durability of concrete and stone materials. This contribution reports and discusses selected conclusions of studies which have scrutinized a large body of theoretical and technical scientific literature on permeability testing of concrete, as well as of regulatory literature, keeping a historical perspective and a focus in pinpointing fundamental open research issues of both theoretical and applied relevance in the mechanics of permeation of fluids through porous media. The fundamental experimental studies conducted in the first decades of last century are also the starting point for an assessment of the continuum mechanics and thermodynamics equations describing the flow of compressible fluids in porous media and for a critical review of the approach of current European standards to the determination of concrete watertightness.

Keywords
Variational Poroelasticity, Multiphase Physics, Concrete Permeability

Published online 3/17/2022, 6 pages
Copyright © 2023 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA

Citation: Michela Monaco, Roberto Serpieri, One century of theoretical and applied mechanics of concrete and stone materials permeability. What have we learned?, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 26, pp 53-58, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644902431-9

The article was published as article 9 of the book Theoretical and Applied Mechanics

Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

References
[1] Withey, M.O., Wiepking, C.A. (1923). The permeability of broken stone concrete, University of Wisconsin Bulletin, Engineering, Ser. 9, 1245.
[2] McMyllan, F.R., Lyse, I. (1929). Some permeability studies of concrete. Journal of the American Concrete Institute Proceedings, 101-124.
[3] Ruettgers, A., Vidal, W.N., Wing S.P (1935). An investigation of the permeability of mass concrete with particular reference to Boulder dam. American Concrete Institute Proceedings, 31, 382. https://doi.org/10.14359/8350
[4] Ruettgers, A., Vidal, W.N., Wing S.P (1936). Authors’ closure in the discussion of paper: “An investigation of the permeability of mass concrete with particular reference to Boulder dam”. American Concrete Institute Proceedings, 32, 378.
[5] Vidal, E. N., Samson, G. (1936). Apparatus and Technique for the Bureau of Reclamation Concrete Permeability Tests. In Proceedings of the American Society for Testing Materials, 36(1), 289.
[6] Glanville, W.H. (1931). The permeability of Portland cement concrete. Building Research Station, Department of Science and Industrial Research, London, Great Britain, Technical paper no. 3.
[7] Madgwick, E. (1932). An investigation into some of the properties of porous building materials. Published in six parts in The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science: Parts I-VII.
[8] Mary, M. (1933,1934). La perméabilité du béton. Annales des Ponts et Chaussées, VI, May-Juin 1933, 467-487, Novembre-Décembre 1934, 421-449.
[9] Muskat, M. (1937) The flow of homogeneous fluids through porous media, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1710292
[10] Kozeny, J. (1927). Über kapillare leitung des Wassers im Boden (Aufstieg, Versickerung und Anwendung auf die Bewässerung). Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien – Mathematisch- NaturwissenSchaftliche Classe, 136 (Abt. IIa) 271-306.
[11] Carman, P.C. (1939). Permeability of saturated sands, soils, and clays. Journal Of Agricultural Science 29, 262-273. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021859600051789
[12] Klinkenberg, L.J. (1941). The permeability of porous media to liquids and gases, Drilling and production practice, New York, American Petroleum Institute, 200-213.
[13] Powers, T.C., Brownyard, T.L. (1947). Studies on the physical properties of hardened cement pastes. Part 7. Permeability and absorptivity. Jour. of the American Concrete Institute. 43, 865-880. https://doi.org/10.14359/15306
[14] Powers, T. C., Copeland, L. E., Hayes, J. C., Mann, H. M. (1954): Permeability of Portland Cement Paste. Journal of the American Concrete Institute, 26(3), 285-298.
[15] BS 1881-5:1970. Methods of Testing Hardened Concrete for other than Strength. With Feb.1983 and March 1990 amendments. British Standard Institution.
[16] Levitt, M. (1970). Non-destructive testing of concrete by the initial surface absorption method. Research Committee for the Cast Stone and Cast Concrete Products Industry, In Non-destructive testing of concrete and timber, Thomas Telford Publishing, 23-26.
[17] Figg, J. W. (1973): Methods of measuring the air and water permeability of concrete. Magazine of Concrete Research, 25(85), p. 213–219. https://doi.org/10.1680/macr.1973.25.85.213
[18] Dhir, R.K., Hewlett, P.C., Chan, Y.N. (1989). Near surface characteristics of concrete: intrinsic permeability. Magazine of Concrete Research, 41(147), 87-97. https://doi.org/10.1680/macr.1989.41.147.87
[19] EN 12390-8:2019 – Testing hardened concrete – Part 8: Depth of penetration of water under pressure, CEN- European Committee for Standardization
[20] Monaco, M., Guadagnuolo, M., Frunzio, G., Serpieri, R. (2022) A critical review of one hundred years of permeability tests for the Life Cycle Assessment of concrete structures, under review, Construction Building Materials.
[21] Serpieri, R., Monaco, M. (2022). A general consistent variational model describing Darcian permeation of liquids and gases through stone materials. Submitted to Meccanica.
[22] Brunauer, S., Emmett, P. H., Teller, E. (1938). Adsorption of gases in multimolecular layers. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 60(2), 309-319. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja01269a023
[23] Zunker, F. (1932). Die Durchlässigkeit des Bodens. Zeitschrift für Pflanzenernährung, Düngung und Bodenkunde, 25 A, 1–24.
[24] Hearn, N., Detwiler, R.J., Sframeli, C. (1994). Water permeability and microstructure of three old concretes. Cement and concrete research, 24(4), 633-640. https://doi.org/10.1016/0008-8846(94)90187-2
[25] El-Dieb, A.S., Hotoon, R.D. (1995). Water-permeability measurement of high-performance concrete using a high-pressure triaxial cell. Cement and Concrete Research, 25(6), 1199-1208. https://doi.org/10.1016/0008-8846(95)00112-P
[26] Serpieri, R., Travascio, F. (2017). Variational Continuum Multiphase Poroelasticity. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3452-7
[27] Serpieri, R., Rosati, L. (2011). Formulation of a finite deformation model for the dynamic response of open cell biphasic media. Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 59(4), 841-862. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmps.2010.12.016
[28] Serpieri, R., Travascio, F., Asfour, S., Rosati, L. (2015). Variationally consistent derivation of the stress partitioning law in saturated porous media. Int. Journal of Solids and Structures, 56, 235-247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsolstr.2014.10.033
[29] Travascio, F., Asfour, S., Serpieri, R., Rosati, L. (2017). Analysis of the consolidation problem of compressible porous media by a macroscopic variational continuum approach. Mathematics and Mechanics of Solids, 22(5), 952-968. https://doi.org/10.1177/1081286515616049