Chemie und Prozesstechnik
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- Nuclear magnetic resonance (2)
- Geosciences (1)
- HPC (1)
- Moisture clog (1)
- Moisture transport (1)
- NMR (1)
- Pore space (1)
- Single-sided NMR (1)
- Spectral induced polarization (1)
- X-ray CT (1)
Organisationseinheit der BAM
Explosive spalling is caused by, among others, the thermohydraulic spalling mechanism. During this process, vaporization, dehydration, moisture-transport and condensation processes interact. As a result, a drying and dehydration zone as well as a saturated zone, known as a moisture clog, are observed inside the unilaterally-heated concrete. The presented research is focused on the experimental investigation of the underlying thermohydraulic processes.
To investigate these, a test methodology based on X-ray computed tomography (CT) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) was developed. Thereby, the X-ray CT scans are carried out simultaneously during the application of a defined unilateral-heating regime on a specially-constructed specimen. This miniaturized specimen, equipped with a double-layer casing, reproduces the condition within a planar, unilaterally-heated building component.
A preliminary test methodology and the first experimental results were presented at the 5th International Workshop on Concrete Spalling in Borås, Sweden (2017). The contribution for the upcoming workshop presents an improved version of this test methodology and new results for a high-performance concrete (HPC) mixture exposed to temperatures up to 500 °C. Regarding the CT measurements, a higher time-resolution of 15 min was achieved and a quantification of the moisture changes was implemented. Due to an increase in signal quality of the NMR measurements, a pore-size specific moisture distribution can now be resolved. This allows to conclude about the moisture reconfiguration between small gel pores and larger interhydrate pores. Additionally, the NMR measurement are no longer limited to first 2.5 cm below the heated surface but a one-dimensional moisture distribution can now be estimated over the whole 10 cm long specimen.
The presented results demonstrate that the combination of X-ray CT and NMR measurements enables to image and quantify the thermally-induced moisture transport and reconfiguration from small gel pores up to macro pores. This provides important insights into the thermohydraulic damage mechanism and leads to a better understanding of spalling avoidance strategies, like the addition of polypropylene fibres.
Relaxation phenomena observed in the electrical low-frequency range (approximately 1 mHz-10 kHz) of natural porous media like sandstones is often assumed to be directly related to the dominant (modal) pore throat sizes measured, for instance, with mercury intrusion porosimetry. Attempts to establish a universally valid relationship between pore size and peak Spectral Induced Polarization (SIP) relaxation time have failed, considering sandstones from very different origins and featuring great variations in textural and chemical compositions as well as in geometrical pore space properties. In addition working with characteristic relaxation times determined in Cole-Cole or Debye decomposition fits to build the relationship have not been successful. In particular, samples with narrow pore throats are often characterized by long SIP relaxation times corresponding to long “characteristic length scales” in these media, assuming that the diffusion coefficients along the electrical double layer were constant. Based on these observations, three different types of SIP relaxation can be distinguished. We present a new way of assessing complex pore spaces of very different sandstones in a multi-methodical approach to combine the benefits of mercury intrusion porosimetry, micro-computed tomography, and nuclear magnetic resonance. In this way, we achieve much deeper insight into the pore space due to the different resolutions and sensitivities of the applied methods to both pore constrictions (throats) and wide pores (pore bodies). We experimentally quantify pore aspect ratios and volume distributions within the two pore regions. We clearly observe systematic differences between three SIP relaxation types identified previously and can attribute the SIP peak relaxation times to measured characteristic length scales within our materials. We highlight selected results for a total of nine sandstones. It seems that SIP relaxation behavior depends on the size difference of the narrow pore throats to the wide pore bodies, which increases from SIP Type 1 to Type 3.
Because of its mobility and ability to investigate exposed surfaces, single-sided (SiS) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technology enables new application fields in geosciences. To test and assess its corresponding potential, we compare longitudinal (T1) and transverse (T2) data measured by SiS NMR with those of conventional geoscientific laboratory NMR. We use reference sandstone samples covering a broad range of pore sizes. Our study demonstrates that the lower signal-to-noise ratio of SiS NMR data generally tends to slightly overestimated widths of relaxation time distributions and consequently pore size distributions. While SiS and conventional NMR produce very similar T1 relaxation data, unbiased SiS NMR results for T2 measurements can only be expected for fine material, i.e. clayey or silty sediments and soils with main relaxation times below 0.05s. This limit is given by the diffusion relaxation rate due to the gradient in the primary magnetic field associated with the SiS NMR. Above that limit, i.e. for coarse material, the relaxation data is strongly attenuated. If considering the diffusion relaxation time of 0.2 s in the numerical data inversion process, the information content >0.2s is blurred over a range larger than that of conventional NMR. However, our results show that principle range and magnitudes of the relaxation time distributions are reconstructed to some extent. Regarding these findings, SiS NMR can be helpful to solve geoscientific issues, e.g. to assess the hydro-mechanical properties of the walls of underground facilities or to provide local soil moisture data sets for calibrating indirect remote techniques on the regional scale. The greatest opportunity provided by the SiS NMR technology is the acquisition of profile relaxation data for rocks with significant bedding structures at the µm scale. With this unique feature, SiS NMR can support the understanding and modeling of hydraulic and diffusional anisotropy behavior of sedimentary rocks.