A development of multi-Species mass transport model considering thermodynamic phase equilibrium

In this paper, a multi-species mass transport model, which can predict time dependent variation of pore solution and solid-phase composition due to the mass transport into the hardened cement paste, has been developed. Since most of the multi-species models established previously, based on the Poisson-Nernst-Planck theory, did not involve the modeling of chemical process, it has been coupled to thermodynamic equilibrium model in this study.

By the coupling of thermodynamic equilibrium model, the multi-species model could simulate many different behaviours in hardened cement paste such as: (i) variation in solid-phase composition when using different types of cement, (ii) physicochemical evaluation of steel corrosion initiation behaviour by calculating the molar ratio of chloride ion to hydroxide ion [Cl]/[OH] in pore solution, (iii) complicated changes of solid-phase composition caused by the penetration of mineral salts during marine seawater exposure conditions.

Those phenomena in concrete can be predicted using the coupled multi-species mass transport model and the thermodynamic equilibrium model described in this paper.