Experimental study on behavior of mortar-aggregate interface after elevated temperatures

A push-out test program was designed and conducted to study the meso-scale behavior of mortar-aggregate interface for concrete after elevated temperatures ranging from 20 degrees C to 600 degrees C with the concept of modeled concrete (MC) and modeled recycled aggregate concrete (MRAC). The MCs and MRACs were designed with different strength grade of mortar and were exposed to different elevated temperatures. Following that the specimens were cooled to room temperature and push-out tests were conducted. Failure process and mechanical behaviors were analyzed based on failure modes, residual load-displacement curves, residual peak loads and peak displacements. It is found that failure modes significantly depended on specimen type, the elevated temperature and the strength grade of mortar. For MC, major cracks started to propagate along the initial cracks caused by elevated temperatures at about 80% of residual peak load. For MRAC, the cracks appeared at a lower level of load with the increasing elevated temperatures. The cracks connected with each other, formed a failure face and the specimens were split into several parts suddenly when reaching the residual peak load. Residual load-displacement curves of different specimens had similarities in shape. Besides, effect of temperatures and strength grade of mortar on residual peak load and peak displacement were analyzed. For MC and MRAC with higher strength of new hardened mortar, the residual peak load kept constant when the temperature is lower than 400 degrees C and dropped by 43.5% on average at 600 degrees C. For MRAC with lower strength of new hardened mortar, the residual peak load began to reduce when the temperatures exceeded 200 degrees C and reduced by 27.4% and 60.8% respectively at 400 degrees C and 600 degrees C. The properties of recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) may be more sensitive to elevated temperatures than those of natural aggregate concrete (NAC) due to the fact that the interfacial properties of RAC are lower than those of NAC, and are deteriorated at lower temperatures.