Proposed Model for Stress-strain Behavior of Fly Ash Concrete Under the Freezing and Thawing Cycles

Fly ash is a supplementary cement material using instead of Portland cement in concrete. Using this material concludes to less emission of greenhouse gas and less water demand of concrete. In this paper, an experimental investigation was carried out on compressive stress–strain behavior of three groups of concrete specimens with different water/cement ratios (0.45, 0.5 and 0.55), containing 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 percent of fly ash (by weight), after subjecting to freezing and thawing cycles. 0, 45, 100 and 150 cycles of freezing and thawing were applied on these specimens according to ASTM C666 and the results presented. Numerical models for the stress–strain behavior of these frozen-thawed concrete were developed and compared with the available experimental data. Results show that the maximum compressive strength of these concrete specimens exposing cycles of freezing and thawing is gained by using about 10 % of fly ash. Moreover, there is a good agreement between the proposed models and test results and the difference is less than 5 %.