The compressive behaviour of natural and recycled aggregate concrete during and after exposure to elevated temperatures
Résumé
Applications of recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) in the production of new concrete can help in addressing the
growing solid waste challenge and preserving natural aggregate resources from depletion. The behaviour of RCA
concrete under different loading scenarios is a well-studied topic at both material and structural levels. However,
little attention has been directed at studying the performance of concrete made with RCA at elevated temperatures.
Most of the previous studies have focused on the residual mechanical response of coarse RCA concrete
after exposure to elevated temperatures. This paper presents an experimental study on the behaviour of natural
aggregate concrete (NAC) and recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) during and after exposure to elevated temperatures.
The RAC in this study contained both coarse and fine recycled concrete aggregates (CRCA and FRCA)
as partial replacements of natural aggregates. The compressive strength of the NAC and RAC were evaluated at
ambient temperature (unheated), after exposure to three different temperatures of 150, 300, and 450 ◦C (residual),
at an elevated temperature of 450 ◦C without preloading (steady state), and during heating while being
preloaded with 40% and 70% of the ambient strength (transient). A rate of 2 ◦C/min was used in all these heating
scenarios. The results indicated that concrete with aggregates partially replaced with CRCA and FRCA exhibited
good performance at elevated temperatures, and it can be considered comparable to conventional concrete. The
results also showed that the compressive strengths measured during elevated temperatures, with or without
preloading, were relatively higher than the residual compressive strengths for both RAC and NAC. The total
thermal strains were also investigated with Digital Image Correlation. Preloading had an impact on the evolution
of the total thermal strains and the occurrence of spalling for the types of concrete that were tested.