A coupled phase-field model for sulfate-induced concrete cracking

The performance of concrete will decrease when subjected to external sulfate corrosion, and numerical models are effective means to analyze the mechanism. Most models cannot efficiently consider the effect between cracks and ionic transport because crack initiation and propagation are ignored. In this paper, a coupled chemical-transport-mechanical phase-field model is developed, in which the phase-field model is applied for the first time to predicate the cracking of sulfate-eroded concrete. The chemical-transport model is established based on the law of conservation of mass and chemical kinetics. The phase-field model equivalents the discrete sharp crack surface into a regularized crack, making it convenient to couple with the chemical-transport model. The crack driving energy in the phase-field model is computed by the expansion strain, which can be obtained from the chemical-transport model. The coupling of crack propagation and ionic transport is achieved by a theoretical equation, which considers both the effects of cracking and porosity. Complex erosion cracks can be automatically tracked by solving the phase-field model. The simulation results of the multi-field coupling model proposed in this paper are in good agreement with the experimental data. More importantly, the spalling phenomenon observed in physical experiments is reproduced, which has not been reported by any other numerical models yet, and new insight into the spalling mechanism is provided.