Investigating the Mechanical Properties and Water Permeability of Recycled Pervious Concrete Using Three Typical Gradation Schemes

This study aims to investigate the influence of three typical gradation schemes, including continuous gradation, discontinuous gradation, and single gradation, on the mechanical properties and water permeability of pervious concrete using recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) as aggregates. The changes in compressive strength, flexural strength, failure mode, connected porosity, and permeability coefficient of Recycled Pervious Concrete (RPC) using different gradation schemes and the correlations among these factors were investigated. The results indicate that the RPC prepared with discontinuous gradation RCA achieves optimal compressive and flexural strengths of 15.70 MPa and 4.22 MPa, respectively. Furthermore, RPC with discontinuous gradation and single gradation exhibits superior water permeability compared to that made with continuous gradation RCA, and its optimal range of the permeability coefficient can reach between 6.36 and 8.32 mm·s−1. The RPC prepared using multi-gradation RCA is effective in enhancing the stability of changes in connected porosity and permeability coefficients. Furthermore, the relationship between connected porosity and permeability coefficients of RPC using different gradation schemes can be effectively characterized through nonlinear fitting, and the correlation coefficients R2 of RPC using continuous gradation, discontinuous gradation, and single gradation are 0.94, 0.92, and 0.90, respectively. This study focuses on the influence of several typical gradation schemes on RPC performance and provides valuable data support for further optimization of its properties.

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