Swelling behavior of ion exchange resins incorporated in tri-calcium silicate cement matrix: II. Mechanical analysis

This paper presents the second part of a study aiming at modelling the mechanical behavior of composites made up of ion exchange resins (IER) solidified in a tri-calcium silicate cement paste (C₃S). Such composites may be subjected to internal pressures due to ion exchange processes between ionic species which are in IER and interstitial solution of the cement paste. The reactive transport model developed in the companion paper is coupled in this study to a multi-scale approach describing the mechanical behavior of the material. It is based on an analogy with thermomechanics for taking in account the IER internal pressures, and on Eshelby-based homogenization techniques to estimate both mechanical and coupling parameters. A laboratory test has been set up to measure the macroscopic strain caused by the swelling phenomenon. The model has been finally implemented in a finite elements software. The simulation of the laboratory tests has been performed and the results have been analyzed and compared to experimental data. - Highlights: • Experimental analysis about mechanical behavior of a composite material. • Chemo-Mechanical-Transport modeling on a composite material made up with IER embedded into cement paste matrix. • Multi-scale modeling.