Water transport and porosity trends of concrete containing integral additions of raw-crushed wind-turbine blade

Abstract

Raw-Crushed Wind-Turbine Blade (RCWTB) is a novel material from the recycling and non-selective crushing of wind-turbine blades composed of fiberglass-composite fibers and polyurethane and balsa-wood particles. This research evaluates for the first time the water-transport and porosity behaviors of concrete with RCWTB through water-penetration-under-pressure, full-immersion water-absorption, capillarity-water-absorption and mercury-intrusion-porosimetry tests. RCWTB contents of 1.5%, 3.0%, 4.5%, and 6.0% were considered. All the RCWTB concretes yielded adequate results for depth of water penetration under pressure and water-absorption rate, although this waste slightly worsened both properties. RCWTB also increased the proportion of pores between 100 and 250 nm in size, which increased total and capillary effective porosities to maximum values of 13.54% and 13.51%, respectively, and sharply decreased the compression-related mechanical properties of concrete. Capillary effective porosity included the porosity effect of balsa-wood particles on concrete mechanical performance, so it allowed estimating the compression-related mechanical properties with a deviation lower than ±10%.

Keywords

• Raw-crushed wind-turbine blade
• Porous balsa wood
• Concrete
• Water absorption
• Effective porosity
• Porosity-based strength estimation