Effect of Pressurized Oil on the Mechanical Properties of Reactive Powder Concrete

Considering the low-permeability of reactive powder concrete (RPC) and the influence of pressurized liquid on crack development, this paper studies the mechanical properties of sealed and unsealed prismatic RPC samples under different confining pressures. It is determined that the stress-strain relations of sealed and unsealed RPC samples are almost consistent before the stress reaches its proportional limit, but the pressurized oil greatly accelerates the failure of the unsealed sample after this point. The strength loss of unsealed samples increases with an increase in the confining pressure. The failure patterns of the sealed RPC samples change with the confining pressure, but those of the unsealed samples are almost same. The unsealed samples are split by a vertical crack under every confining pressure. Additionally, it is determined that the crack development leads to a difference in the lateral strains in the perpendicular directions for sealed prismatic samples, and the difference between the lateral strains at the peak stress in different directions increases linearly as the confining pressure increases. In contrast, for unsealed samples the lateral strains at the peak stress in the perpendicular directions are close.