Experimental Study on Pore Characteristics and Fractal Dimension Calculation of Pore Structure of Aerated Concrete Block

Abstract

It is important to control and predict the macroscopic properties through pore structure parameters of cement-based materials. Microscopic pore structure of concrete has many characteristics, such as sizes and disordered distribution. It is necessary to use fractal theory to describe the pore structure of concrete. In order to establish the relationship between the pore structure characteristics of aerated concrete and porosity, shape factor, pore superficial area, average pore diameter, and average diameter, the fractal dimension of the pore structure was used to evaluate the pore structure characteristics of aerated concrete. The X-ray computed tomography (CT) images of the aerated concrete block pore structure were obtained by using the XTH320 series X-ray three-dimensional microscope. The pore characteristics of aerated concrete block were studied according to Image-Pro Plus (IPP). Based on the research of the fractal dimension measurement methods, the proposed MATLAB program automatically determined the fractal dimension of the aerated concrete block pore structure images. The research results indicated that the small pores (20 μm∼60 μm) of aerated concrete block account for a large percentage compared with the large pores (60 μm∼400 μm or more) from pore diameter distribution and the pore structure of aerated concrete block has obvious fractal features and the fractal dimension of aerated concrete block pore structure images were calculated to be in the range of 1.775–1.805. The pore fractal dimension has a strong correlation with the pore fractal characteristics of aerated concrete blocks. The fractal dimension of the pore structure linearly increases with porosity, shape factor, and pore surface area. The fractal dimension of the pore structure decreases with the average pore size and average diameter. Thus, the fractal dimension of the pore structure that is calculated by the MATLAB program based on fractal theory can be assumed as the integrative evaluation index for evaluating the pore structure characteristic of aerated concrete block.