Pervious concrete: Characterization of fundamental properties and simulation of microstructure

Pervious concrete is a cement based material produced with the same raw materials as regular concrete but the use of a different mixture recipe and placement technique results in a complex pore structure that allows water and other fluids to flow through. It is easy to produce and its strength characteristics and pervious quality makes it of particular interest in environmental engineering applications related to storm runoff and pollution control. The first part of this dissertation documents three years of research on the properties of pervious concrete. This research has resulted in the development of an improved method of measuring the porosity of the material, a model to estimate the saturated hydraulic conductivity based on the Carman-Kozeny equation, the determination of the rational runoff coefficient for pervious concrete and data regarding the flexural and compressive strength of field placed pervious concrete slabs. These results indicate that the pore structure is a key component determining the material properties and performance of pervious concrete.; The second part of this dissertation reviews the main characteristics of the microstructure of pervious concrete, specific surface area, pore size distribution and characteristics of cement paste that are relevant for the performance of pervious concrete. It follows with a discussion of the mathematical background necessary to define pervious concrete as a heterogeneous random porous material. This definition grants the use of tools of stochastic geometry and random binary fields in the description and further characterization of this material.; The necessary mathematical foundations for the description of heterogeneous random media using of stochastic geometry, binary random fields and digital image analysis are then explained and the method developed by Koutsourelakis and Deodatis in 2002 to simulate random binary fields is implemented in Matlab to be used in the stochastic simulation of pervious concrete microstructure. Results of the code implementation in one dimension are presented and preliminary results of the simulation of pervious concrete microstructure in one dimension are discussed.