Mechanical properties and damage characteristics of concrete under different atmospheric pressures

The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanical properties and damage characteristics of concrete under different atmospheric pressures (50 kPa, 80 kPa, and 101 kPa). The failure modes, compressive strength, dynamic elastic modulus, stress-strain curve, air pore structure, and acoustic emission (AE) parameters of concrete specimens were evaluated under the different atmospheric pressures. The results showed that as the atmospheric pressure decreased, the concrete damage gradually transitioned from tensile damage to shear damage, the compressive strength and dynamic elastic modulus decreased, and the peak strain increased. The pore structure of the hardened concrete changed, the number of air pores and air content decreased, and the average pore size and pore spacing coefficient increased considerably. Additionally, an analysis of the AE parameters showed that the development pattern of the concrete ringing counts and energy were mostly the same under different atmospheric pressures. The decrease in atmospheric pressure was accompanied by a corresponding gradual decrease in the AE rate of change parameters and cumulative AE parameters, indicating that the concrete crack expansion rate slowed down while the total cracking activity decreased. Moreover, the inverted V-shape of the b-value curve was not obvious, and the peak b-value decreased with decreasing atmospheric pressure. Finally, a combination of the Weibull distribution theory, Lognormal distribution theory, and strain equivalent hypothesis was used to establish a concrete uniaxial compression constitutive model considering atmospheric pressure. The model can reflect the evolution law of the mechanical properties of concrete under uniaxial compression under different atmospheric pressures.