Construction and Building Materials 297 (2021) 123782

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Mechanical properties and failure mechanism of carbon nanotube

concrete at high temperatures
Yao Yao a,b,⇑, Hao Lu a
a
School of Mechanics, Civil Engineering and Architecture, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China
b
School of Civil Engineering, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi’an 710055, China

h i g h l i g h t s g r a p h i c a l a b s t r a c t

The effect of temperature on the

compressive strength and failure
mechanism of carbon nanotube
concrete is experimentally
investigated.

The changes of microstructure and
material composition of carbon
nanotubes concrete at different
temperatures were analyzed.

A new failure mode of carbon
nanotubes in concrete was observed
at 600 ℃.

The Matusinovic model was modified
by introducing a function considering
the influence of carbon nanotubes,
predictions of the proposed model
show reasonable accuracy compared
with the experimental results.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: It is well documented that carbon nanotubes have better thermal stability compared with traditional
Received 10 January 2021 polymer fibers, which enables application of carbon nanotubes to improve the performance of concrete
Received in revised form 25 May 2021 at high temperature. In this work, the effects of carbon nanotubes on the compressive strength and
Accepted 27 May 2021
microstructure of concrete at high temperatures are studied. The influence of temperature on the failure
mechanism of carbon nanotube concrete is investigated. The experimental result shows that the carbon
nanotubes inhibit further hydration reaction of the matrix at 300 ℃. The compressive strength of plain
Keywords:
concrete increases more than carbon nanotube concrete at 300 ℃. The peak value of residual compressive
Carbon nanotube
Concrete
strength migrates from 0.5% content of carbon nanotubes at room temperature to 0.3% content of carbon
High temperature nanotubes at 600 ℃ and 900 ℃. A new failure mode of carbon nanotubes in concrete was observed at
Failure mode 600 ℃. A modified Matusinovic model is developed by introducing a function considering the influence
Properties of carbon nanotubes, predictions of the proposed model show reasonable accuracy compared with the
experimental results.
Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

⇑ Corresponding author at: School of Civil Engineering, Xi’an University of
Architecture and Technology, Xi’an 710055, China.
E-mail address: yaoy@nwpu.edu.cn (Y. Yao).
1. Introduction
Fire is one of the common hazards affecting the properties of
construction materials and reliability of engineering structures.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2021.123782
0950-0618/Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Yao and H. Lu
High temperature can significantly reduce compressive strength,
tensile strength and elastic modulus of concrete [1–3]. The perfor-
mance of concrete exposed to high temperature depends on the
type and proportion of components, heating and cooling rates,
temperature and duration of fire exposure etc. [4,5]. Researches
have been performed to improve the performance of concrete at
high temperature by adding artificial fibers. Zhang and Tan [6]
investigated the effect of polymer fibers on spalling mitigation of
ultra-high performance concrete at high temperature. They
showed that the melting temperature of polymer fibers are gener-
ally below 260 ℃, including linear low-density polyethylene, ultra-
high molecular weight polyethylene, polypropylene, polyamide 66
and polyester fibers, in which linear low-density polyethylene,
polypropylene and polyamide 66 fibers could prevent spalling of
ultra-high performance concrete at high temperature. On the other
hand, Li et al. [4] found that the channels formed in the concrete
matrix by the melting polymer fiber will lead to deterioration of
concrete strength at high temperature. Further research on new
refractory to improve the high temperature performance of con-
crete is still required.
With the development of nanotechnology, nano-materials in
concrete has attracted wide research interests in the past decades.
Shi et al. [7] studied the effect of different nanoparticle materials
on the mechanical properties of ultra-high performance concrete.
The results showed that nano-CaCO3 and nano-SiO2 can nucleate
and fill in the concrete, which can improve the internal porosity
and make the material more uniformly distributed. Li et al. [8]
investigated the influence of nano-Al2O3 on the elastic modulus
of cement-based composites. When nano-Al2O3 was mixed with
mortar, the compactness of cement interface transition zone could
be enhanced, the porosity was reduced and the elastic modulus
was increased. Li et al. [9] conducted experiments to analyze the
bending fatigue performance of pavement concrete containing
nano-TiO2 particles. Ghahari et al. [10] investigated the fracture
properties of cellulose nanocrystals cement paste. They found that
the fracture properties and compressive strength of cement-based
materials can be improved by cellulose nanocrystals.
A representative structural diagram of single-walled carbon
nanotubes is shown in Fig. 1. Compared with the traditional artifi-
cial fiber materials or zero-dimensional nanoparticles, carbon nan-
otubes are more suitable to reinforce cement-based materials due
to their unique mechanical properties. For example, the average
fracture strength of multi-walled carbon nanotubes can be up to
100 GPa [11] with a high aspect ratio (1:1000) and surface area
Fig. 1. Representative diagram of carbon nanotube.
2
Construction and Building Materials 297 (2021) 123782
(200 ~ 300 m2 /g) [12] which can inhibit formation and expansion
of micro cracks in concrete matrix [13,14]. The filling of carbon
nanotube and nucleation effect can help improving the microstruc-
ture of interface transition zone [15,16]. In addition, the failure
temperature of carbon nanotubes is as high as 600 ℃. Compared
with the traditional fibers [6] carbon nanotubes can effectively
improve the performance of concrete at high temperature. Gener-
ally, carbon nanotubes can benefit the fracture performance and
early strain capacity of cement paste and mortar, and reduce prop-
agation of cracks at high temperatures [14].
In the past decade, properties of carbon nanotube concrete at
room temperature has been widely investigated. MacLeod et al.
[17] evaluated the effect of pre-dispersion carbon nanotubes liquid
admixtures on the fresh hardening performance of carbon nan-
otube concrete, the pre-dispersion carbon nanotubes can bring sig-
nificant improvement on the performance of concrete after
28 days. Mohammadyan and Ghaderi [18] adopted waste glass
powder, basalt fiber and carbon nanotubes as ternary materials
in concrete, which is beneficial to the development of environmen-
tally friend buildings. Lushnikova and Zaoui [19] proposed models
for carbon nanotube concrete and studied the effect of carbon nan-
otubes density on cementation composites. Alessandro et al. [20]
Parvaneh and Khiabani [21] investigated the mechanical behavior
of concrete structure and piezoresistive properties. Conductive
cement matrix composites doped carbon nanotubes showed the
capability of damage detection, and could monitor concrete struc-
tures with cost-effective solutions. In general, carbon nanotube
concrete has potential to be a new advanced construction material.
Influence of porosity on compressive strength was studied for
different cement-based materials (Ryshkewitch [22] Hasselman
[23] Ozturk and Baradan [24]). Matusinovic et al. [25] proposed a
relationship between porosity and compressive strength of cement
slurry. However, this model is not suitable for carbon nanotube
concrete because of the bridging and filling effects of carbon nan-
otubes. Therefore, a new model is required to describe the relation-
ship between the porosity and compressive strength of carbon
nanotube concrete considering the effect of carbon nanotube
dosage.
The effect of high temperature on the carbon nanotube concrete
still requires further study. In this work, the performance of carbon
nanotube concrete with different dosage at high temperatures are
studied. The strength change and failure mechanism of carbon
nanotube concrete at different temperatures are clarified. In addi-
tion, a modified Matusinovic model is established considering
porosity and content of carbon nanotubes. The developed model
can accurately describe the relationship between porosity and
compressive strength of carbon nanotube concrete.
2. Experimental program
2.1. Materials and sample preparation
PO 52.5 Portland Cement is adopted in the current study, the
3d compressive strength and flexural strength is 33.8 MPa and
6.2Mpa, respectively. The parameters of cement materials adopted
in this work are shown in Table 1. The particle size of powder silica
fume is in the range of 6.5 ~ 9 lm (1500 ~ 2000 mesh), and the SiO2
content is 92.2%. The size of quartz sand ranges from 80 to 120
mesh. The maximum particle size of fine aggregates is approxi-
mately 0.6 mm, which are sieved from natural river sand [26].
The superplasticizer is polycarboxylic type superplasticizer.
Multi-walled hydroxylated carbon nanotubes are adopted and
the parameters are shown in Table 2.
According to the quality of cement material, carbon nanotubes
with 0, 0.1%, 0.3%, 0.5%, 0.7% and 1.0% mass fraction were added
Y. Yao and H. Lu Construction and Building Materials 297 (2021) 123782

Table 1
The adopted parameters of cement materials.

Items Result
SO3 (%) 2.2
MgO (%) 3.5
Chloridion (%) 0.04
Specific surface area (m2/kg) 381
Initial setting time (min) 115
Final setting time (min) 184
Loss on ignition (%) 1.4
3d flexural strength (MPa) 6.2
3d compressive strength (MPa) 33.8

Table 2
Properties of the carbon nanotubes adopted in the present study.

Parameter Value
Diameter 7 nm to 15 nm
Length 10 lm
Purity 97.5%
Ash 2.5% Fig. 2. Temperature curves of the muffle furnace and sample size.
Specific surface area 230 m2/g to 270 m2/g
Tap density 0.06 g/cm3 to 0.09 g/cm3
Resistivity 80 mXcm to 100 mXcm
Fe ＜4000 mg/kg water under heating, the samples were kept at 200 ℃ for 2 h,
Al ＜3500 mg/kg and then heated to the target temperature. Finally, the samples
Mo ＜800 mg/kg
were naturally cooled to room temperature. The temperature
curve of the muffle furnace is shown in Fig. 2.

into the concrete matrix, six kinds of carbon nanotube concrete 2.2. Experimental analysis
with different carbon nanotube contents were prepared, named
as REF, 0.1CNT, 0.3CNT, 0.5CNT, 0.7CNT and 1.0CNT, respectively. The effects of carbon nanotubes content on the compressive
The concrete mix ratio is shown in Table 3. strength of concrete matrix with 3d, 7d and 28d curing at room
The mass of multi-walled carbon nanotubes was weighed and temperature, and the residual compressive strength with different
poured into water. Stirring with beaker and glass rod was carried contents of carbon nanotubes after exposing to high temperature
out for 3 min so that the agglomerated carbon nanotubes can be are investigated. The compressive strength of
pre-dispersed in water. Then the beaker containing dispersion liq- 50 mm  50 mm  50 mm cube samples were tested at room tem-
uid of the carbon nanotubes was put into the ultrasonic cleaning perature, 300 ℃, 600 ℃ and 900 ℃, respectively. The compressive
apparatus with 120 W ultrasonic power and 40 kHz ultrasonic fre- strength at room temperature and the residual compressive
quency for 15 min, so that the carbon nanotubes could have good strength after heating were tested. In the experiments, loading rate
dispersion. of the hydraulic press machine is 0.5KN/s. Three samples for each
As shown in Fig. 2, samples with geometric size of dosage group were prepared, and the peak compressive strength of
50 mm  50 mm  50 mm were prepared for uniaxial compression each sample was recorded. The average value of three samples in
experiment at different temperatures. The samples were curing for each dosage group was used to represent its compressive strength.
3d, 7d and 28d, respectively. The temperature of curing box was In the current study, the mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) is
set at 20 ℃ with humidity of 95%. After the samples reach the adopted to evaluate the pore size distribution of carbon nanotube
scheduled curing period, they were dried at room temperature concrete. The specific expression (1) is [28]:
for 3 days to eliminate the moisture on the surface.
In the experiments, the samples were heated to the target tem- 4ccosh
P¼ ð1Þ
perature with a heating rate of 4.5 ℃/min and kept constant for 2 h d
to achieve the isothermal state [27]. In order to reduce the forma-
whereP is the mercury injection pressure (Pa);
tion of vapor pressure in the samples due to vaporization of free
c is the mercury surface tension, generally taken as 480  10-
3
N/m;
h represents the contact angle, 130° is adopted in this work;
Table 3
d denotes the press in aperture (m).
Composition of concrete matrix.
The micro morphology changes of carbon nanotube concrete
Concrete W/C C W SF SS FA SP (kg/m3) CNT (wt%) after exposing to different temperatures were observed by using
REF 0.42 1 0.42 0.25 0.25 1.1 2.67 0 Zeiss sigma 500 and FEI Quanta FEG 250 scanning electron micro-
0.1CNT 0.42 1 0.42 0.25 0.25 1.1 2.67 0.1 scopies. In order to observe the micro morphology of the failure
0.3CNT 0.42 1 0.42 0.25 0.25 1.1 2.67 0.3
surface of carbon nanotube concrete, the sample fragments of uni-
0.5CNT 0.42 1 0.42 0.25 0.25 1.1 2.67 0.5
0.7CNT 0.42 1 0.42 0.25 0.25 1.1 2.67 0.7 axial compression test were taken at different temperatures. To
1.0CNT 0.42 1 0.42 0.25 0.25 1.1 2.67 1.0 enhance the surface conductivity of the samples, all the observed
samples were sprayed with gold before the electron microscope
*W/C: water cement ratio; C: cement, W: water, SF: silica fume, SS: silica sand, SP:
superplasticizer, FA: fine aggregate and CNT: carbon nanotubes, REF donates the analysis. Physical and chemical changes usually occur in concrete
control sample without carbon nanotubes; other samples were named based on the during heating, these changes can affect the microstructure of con-
CNT content. For example, 0.5CNT contains 0.5 wt% of carbon nanotubes. crete matrix and the mechanical strength. Therefore, X-ray
3
Y. Yao and H. Lu
diffraction (XRD) analysis was performed to reveal the composition
changes of carbon nanotube concrete at different temperatures.
The METTLER TOLEDO TGA/DSC1 synchronous thermal analyzer
was used to explore the concrete mixed with different contents of
carbon nanotube. The mass change, heat absorption and release
can be obtained for the same sample. TG-DSC combined thermal
analysis was performed for carbon nanotubes and TG analysis
was conducted for carbon nanotube concrete samples. All the sam-
ples were tested from room temperature to 1000 ℃ with a heating
rate of 10 ℃/min.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Compressive strength analysis
Fig. 3 shows the uniaxial compressive strength of concrete with
different contents of carbon nanotubes and curing periods at room
temperature. It is noted that with increasing of the curing period,
the compressive strength of samples with different carbon nan-
otube contents increases because of the cement hydration process.
The compressive strength of concrete samples cured for 3d shows
the minimum value, and the samples cured for 28d is the maxi-
mum in the group with the same carbon nanotube content. Longer
curing period leads to complete hydration reaction in the matrix,
and more C-S-H content of hydration product can be produced.
When the carbon nanotubes content is less than 0.5 wt%, it can
effectively promote the hydration process of cement in the early
curing stage. Under the condition of 7d curing, the compressive
strength of samples with 0.5 wt% carbon nanotube increases by
27.8% compared with samples without carbon nanotubes. This is
because the active functional groups on the surface of carbon nan-
otube acts as the nucleation sites of cement hydration products
[29,30] which promotes the attachment and generation of C-S-H
on the carbon nanotubes surface. Under the same curing period,
with the increasing of carbon nanotubes content in the concrete
matrix, the compressive strength of the samples increases first
and then decreases. The compressive strength of concrete
increases with increasing of the carbon nanotubes content in the
range of 0 ~ 0.5 wt%, and reaches the maximum value when the
content of carbon nanotube is 0.5 wt%. Under the curing period
of 28d, the strength of samples with 0.5 wt% carbon nanotube
can increase up to 24.5%. It is attributed that carbon nanotubes
Fig. 3. Influence of carbon nanotubes content and curing periods on the compres-
sive strength of concrete at room temperature.
4
Construction and Building Materials 297 (2021) 123782
can bridge the micro-cracks of concrete and inhibit the propaga-
tion of cracks [31]. With higher carbon nanotubes content, the
agglomeration of carbon nanotubes results in poor dispersion of
solution, which leads to poor workability of mortar. It may increase
the porosity in the concrete matrix and have a negative effect on
the compressive strength (refer to the MIP test section). Therefore,
the compressive strength of concrete starts to decline when the
content of carbon nanotubes ranges from 0.5 ~ 1.0 wt%, the com-
pressive strength decreases significantly with increasing of carbon
nanotubes content. The mercury intrusion porosimetry test shows
the relationship among the content of carbon nanotubes, the
porosity and compressive strength of samples.
Fig. 4 shows the residual compressive strength of carbon nan-
otube concrete samples after exposing to 300 ℃, 600 ℃ and
900 ℃, respectively. We observed that the compressive strength
of all the concrete samples increased at 300 ℃. It is due to the pro-
moted unreacted pozzolanic reaction inside the concrete and the
continuous reaction of unreacted cement hydration reaction at
300 ℃ [32]. The specific mechanism is that the free water in the
concrete matrix can be volatilized and lost when the temperature
is not too high, and it starts to escape at 110 ℃. In the process of
free water escaping, the temperature and humidity environment
of spontaneous steam curing is formed in the concrete [33]. This
process accelerates the hydration rate of cement and deepen the
degree of hydration. Therefore, more C-S-H is generated in the con-
crete matrix, the setting effect of cement paste can be further
strengthened and the strength of concrete is improved [34]. Like
the compressive strength at room temperature, the residual com-
pressive strength reaches the maximum value when the content
of carbon nanotubes is 0.5 wt% at 300 ℃.
Compared with the traditional fiber materials [6] carbon nan-
otubes show promising high-temperature stability. The TG-DSC
curves of carbon nanotubes in air are shown in Fig. 5. The mass loss
of carbon nanotubes occurs from 300 ℃ to 650 ℃. The largest car-
bon nanotube mass loss is observed between 500 ℃ to 650 ℃, it is
also the temperature range with the highest mass loss rate. On the
other hand, it shows that carbon nanotube concrete has special
mechanical properties at 600 ℃. Compared with the residual
strength of carbon nanotube concrete at 300 ℃, the residual com-
pressive strength is significantly reduced at 600 ℃ and 900 ℃. The
peak value of residual compressive strength is transferred from
0.5 wt% of carbon nanotubes content at 300 ℃ to 0.3 wt% at higher
Fig. 4. Residual compressive strength of concrete with different carbon nanotube
contents at 300 ℃, 600 ℃ and 900 ℃.
Y. Yao and H. Lu
Fig. 5. TG-DSC curves of carbon nanotubes (a) N2 atmosphere (b) air atmosphere.
temperatures. This is because the microstructure of concrete
matrix will be damaged by thermochemical reaction at tempera-
ture above 550 ℃, such as dehydration, phase transformation,
shrinkage, aggregate expansion and C-S-H structure decomposi-
tion, which have strong influence on the concrete strength at ele-
vated temperatures [26]. Simultaneously, failure of carbon
nanotubes can be observed in this temperature range. Combing
of these two factors cause the residual compressive strength of car-
bon nanotube concrete decreases significantly at 600 ℃ and higher
temperature.
The mass loss rate of carbon nanotubes in air reaches the max-
imum at 600 ℃. It should be noted that only the surfaces of sam-
ples are fully contacted with air, while the reaction of carbon
nanotubes and air inside the samples is incomplete. There exists
temperature gradient in the process of heating. Therefore, the
TG-DSC curves of carbon nanotubes in the core of samples are con-
sistent with the test in nitrogen atmosphere, as shown in Fig. 5(a).
The TG-DSC curves of carbon nanotubes on the surface layer are in
accordance with the test in air, as shown in Fig. 5(b). Because the
carbon nanotubes in the samples are not completely damaged by
high temperature, the strength of carbon nanotube concrete sam-
ples still fluctuate with the increasing of carbon nanotubes content
at 600 ℃.
The loss rate of concrete compressive strength with various
contents of carbon nanotubes at different temperatures is shown
in Fig. 6. The loss of compressive strength is defined as [4]:
f c;RT  f C;HT
Compressiv estrengthlossð%Þ ¼  100%
f C;RT
Construction and Building Materials 297 (2021) 123782
where f c;RT is the compressive strength of carbon nanotube concrete
at room temperature; f C;HT represents the residual compressive
strength of carbon nanotube concrete after exposing to high
temperature.
When the carbon nanotube concrete samples are exposed to
300 ℃, the compressive strength increases by 45 ~ 60%. After
exposing to 600 ℃, compared with the room temperature group,
the compressive strength in the REF and the 0.3CNT group has
some improvement, but the compressive strength of the other
groups shows limited difference from the room temperature group.
The hydration products are almost completely decomposed and
the concrete samples are seriously damaged [4] so the compressive
strength loss rate reaches the highest at 900 ℃. As shown in Fig. 6,
the compressive strength loss of the samples is about 65% at 900 ℃.
Compared with the uniaxial compression experiments at room
temperature, the residual compressive strength of REF, 0.1CNT,
0.3CNT, 0.5CNT and 1.0CNT at 300 ℃ increase by 61.1%, 47.3%,
46.0%, 43.9% and 49.8%, respectively. The compressive strength of
REF samples increases more significantly than carbon nanotube
concrete samples at 300 ℃. In addition, the trend of strength
change is similar to the trend of porosity from the MIP test. The
phenomenon may be explained by there are a lot of pores in the
REF samples compared with the carbon nanotube concrete, and
the matrix structure is not as dense as carbon nanotube concrete
samples at room temperature, resulting in a large amount of fill-
able space in the concrete matrix. High temperature further pro-
motes the hydration reaction in the matrix, which makes the
newly formed hydration product C-S-H filling the space and pores
in the matrix [6] so that the strength of the samples is significantly
improved at 300 ℃. The addition of carbon nanotubes in the con-
crete occupies a certain space and fills pores in the matrix [35]
which makes the matrix of carbon nanotube concrete more com-
pact. Compared with the REF samples, the carbon nanotubes inhi-
bit further hydration reaction of the matrix at 300 ℃, which makes
the newly formed hydration products of carbon nanotube concrete
less than the REF samples. The strength of concrete matrix has
been significantly improved by the addition of carbon nanotubes
at room temperature because carbon nanotubes can bridge cracks
and promote cement hydration reaction [31,35,36] which makes
the basic strength of carbon nanotube concrete samples higher
than the REF samples.
ð2Þ Fig. 6. Compressive strength loss (%) of concrete with different contents of carbon
nanotubes at high temperatures.
5
Y. Yao and H. Lu
The change of concrete compressive strength and failure mech-
anism of REF and carbon nanotube concrete samples at high tem-
peratures are shown in Fig. 7. It is assumed that the circles in the
figure represent all the pores and spaces in the concrete matrix,
and the bridging effect of carbon nanotubes dispersed in matrix
is not considered. As shown in Fig. 7(a), there are different size
of pores in the REF samples at room temperature, which makes
the matrix looser. These pores provide space for concrete to further
promote hydration and generate new hydration products at 300 ℃.
As shown in Fig. 7(b), the formed hydration products C-S-H further
fill the pore structure of REF samples [6] which makes the matrix
structure more compact. At 600 ℃, the hydration product C-S-H
formed at 300 ℃ is completely destroyed [37–39] resulting in lim-
ited difference of compressive strength between 600 ℃ and room
temperature, as shown in Fig. 7(c). Fig. 7(e) shows the carbon nan-
otube concrete samples occupy a certain space in the matrix and
the pore structures in the matrix are filled at room temperature
[35]. As shown in Fig. 7(f), there is not much space left in the
matrix for the newly generated hydration products at 300 ℃
because the pore structure in the carbon nanotube concrete is filled
by carbon nanotubes. Therefore, the addition of carbon nanotubes
in concrete inhibits the hydration reaction of concrete at high tem-
perature compared with the REF samples. At 300 ℃, the amount of
new hydration product C-S-H in carbon nanotube concrete sam-
ples is less than that in REF samples, so the increasing of carbon
nanotube concrete samples strength is less than that in REF sam-
ples. Fig. 7(g) shows the carbon nanotubes in the samples begin
to fail and some hydration products decompose at 600 ℃. As
shown in Fig. 7(d) and 7(h), the carbon nanotubes in the samples
completely fail at 900 ℃, and the hydration products in the con-
crete matrix are completely decomposed [4]. Many pores appear
in the matrix, which makes the matrix looser. At 900 ℃, the poros-
ity of REF samples is similar to the carbon nanotube concrete sam-
ples. Therefore, the strength difference between the REF and
carbon nanotube concrete samples is limited at 900 ℃.
3.2. SEM analysis
The dispersion effect of carbon nanotubes on concrete matrix in
REF, 0.1CNT, 0.3CNT, 0.5CNT and 1.0CNT at room temperature is
shown in Fig. 8(a)-(e). When the content of carbon nanotubes is
0.1 wt%, the dispersion of carbon nanotubes in concrete matrix is
relatively sparse at room temperature. However, the small amount
of carbon nanotubes and large distance between them can hardly
Fig. 7. Strength change and failure mechanism of carbon nanotube concrete at different temperatures.
6
Construction and Building Materials 297 (2021) 123782
connect the adjacent carbon nanotube clusters. Thus, the effect of
hydration product C-S-H and carbon nanotubes is insufficient, so
the compressive strength of concrete in this case is not improved
significantly. With the increasing of carbon nanotubes, the dis-
persibility of carbon nanotubes in the concrete matrix gradually
becomes worse. Because of the van der Waals force, the carbon
nanotubes are intertwined and agglomerated in the concrete
matrix, which provide a good structural framework for the forma-
tion of cement hydration product C-S-H, so that C-S-H can adhere
to the carbon nanotube clusters and finally wrap the carbon nan-
otube clusters. When microcracks nucleate in the concrete matrix,
the bridging and pull-out effects of carbon nanotubes can further
restrict propagation of microcracks. This mechanism can improve
the strength of cement hydration product C-S-H, which mainly
contributes to the concrete strength. As shown in Fig. 8(d), when
the content of carbon nanotubes is less than 0.5 wt%, the pores
in the concrete matrix can be effectively filled by carbon nanotube
clusters, which further reduces the porosity in the matrix, and the
compactness of concrete matrix is also improved.
Based on these strengthening mechanisms, the concrete
strength can be improved when the content of carbon nanotubes
is 0 ~ 0.5 wt%, and the strength enhancement degree reaches the
highest when the content is 0.5 wt%. When the content of carbon
nanotube continues to increase from 0.5 wt%, the agglomeration
of carbon nanotubes in the concrete matrix is more serious. Carbon
nanotube clusters dominate the growth space of hydration product
C-S-H, which inhibits the growth of cement hydration product C-S-
H in the matrix pores, and the porosity of matrix is improved.
Therefore, the strength of concrete decreases when the content
of carbon nanotubes is higher than 0.5 wt%.
The dispersion effect of carbon nanotubes in REF, 0.1CNT, 0.3
CNT, 0.5 CNT and 1.0 CNT at 300 ℃ is shown in Fig. 9. SEM analysis
shows that the microstructure of carbon nanotube concrete is den-
ser after heating to 300 ℃, and the amount of C-S-H is more abun-
dant. The C-S-H gel begins to dehydrate at 160 ~ 300 ℃, the
dehydration of free water at relatively low temperature makes C-
S-H gel structure compact gradually, and the strength of hardened
cement paste increases [34]. Therefore, the strength of concrete is
improved at 300 ℃. It is noted that the morphology of carbon nan-
otubes in concrete matrix is not significantly affected at 300 ℃. The
mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes in concrete are not
deteriorated because of the intact structure. So the concrete
strength still changes with the content of carbon nanotubes at
300 ℃.
Y. Yao and H. Lu
Fig. 8. Micro morphology of concrete with different contents of carbon nanotubes at room temperature (a) REF (b) 0.1CNT (c) 0.3CNT (d) 0.5CNT and (e) 1.0CNT.
Fig. 9. Micro morphology of concrete with different contents of carbon nanotubes at 300 ℃ (a) REF (b) 0.1CNT (c) 0.3CNT (d) 0.5CNT and (e) 1.0CNT.
Fig. 10 shows the dispersion effect in REF, 0.1CNT, 0.3 CNT, 0.5
CNT and 1.0 CNT at 600 ℃. From the SEM analysis, it is difficult to
find carbon nanotubes in 0.1CNT at 600 ℃. As shown in Fig. 10(a)
and 10(b), the microstructure of concrete matrix and cement
hydration product C-S-H begins to deteriorate at 600 ℃, and the
matrix shows porous phenomenon. Compared with the strength
of carbon nanotube concrete at 300 ℃, it directly leads to a signif-
icant deterioration of the strength. As shown in Fig. 10(c)-(e), the
tubular structure of carbon nanotubes in the high content carbon
nanotube concrete is destroyed at 600 ℃. The experimental
results are consistent with the TG-DSC curves of carbon nan-
otubes in air, and the carbon nanotubes fail at 600 ℃. However,
the gradually failure of carbon nanotubes still exist in the con-
crete matrix, and a new network cluster appears in the matrix.
It continues to play a role of bridging cracks in the concrete
matrix. Thus, the compressive strength of carbon nanotube con-
crete changes with the content of carbon nanotube concrete at
600 ℃.
7
Construction and Building Materials 297 (2021) 123782
Fig. 11 shows the micro morphology of REF, 0.1CNT, 0.3 CNT, 0.5
CNT and 1.0 CNT concrete at 900 ℃. The microstructure of concrete
and the hydration product C-S-H of cement are basically invalid at
900 ℃, the matrix is loose and porous. The carbon nanotubes in the
concrete matrix completely fail at this temperature, and SEM anal-
ysis shows that there are no carbon nanotubes in the matrix. The
space originally occupied by carbon nanotubes in the matrix pro-
duces pores with the disappearance of carbon nanotubes at high
temperature. With the increasing of carbon nanotubes content,
the concrete matrix becomes more porous. Thus, there is no obvi-
ous difference in the compressive strength of carbon nanotube
concrete at 900 ℃.
3.3. XRD analysis
The mechanical properties of carbon nanotube concrete are
related to physical and chemical transformations at high tempera-
ture. XRD patterns of concrete with various contents of carbon
Y. Yao and H. Lu
Fig. 10. Micro morphology of concrete with different contents of carbon nanotubes at 600 ℃ (a) REF (b) 0.1CNT (c) 0.3CNT (d) 0.5CNT and (e) 1.0CNT.
Fig. 11. Micro morphology of concrete with different contents of carbon nanotubes at 900 ℃ (a) REF (b) 0.1CNT (c) 0.3CNT (d) 0.5CNT and (e) 1.0CNT.
nanotubes at different temperatures are shown in Fig. 12. The char-
acteristic peaks of quartz, CaCO3, Ca(OH)2 and composition of
cement (C2S, C3S) are observed at room temperature. The strength
of concrete reinforced by carbon nanotubes is affected by not only
the physical action between carbon nanotubes and matrix [31] but
also a series of chemical reaction [30]. The combining effects pro-
mote the strength improvement of carbon nanotube concrete. The
difference between the XRD patterns of REF and 0.5CNT at room
temperature is not significant. It indicates that the degree of car-
bon nanotubes to promote the hydration reaction of concrete is
limited. From the compressive strength curves for different
amounts of carbon nanotubes at room temperature, the degree of
physical action (bridging cracks and filling pores) of carbon nan-
otubes in the matrix is greater than that of the chemical reaction
(promoting hydration reaction).
The intensity of Ca(OH)2 peak decreases significantly at 300 ℃
because high temperature can promote the reaction of pozzolanic
process, making Ca(OH)2 transform into C-S-H [4]. At the same
8
Construction and Building Materials 297 (2021) 123782
time, the peak intensity of hydration products is improved. This
process explains why the compressive strength of all the samples
can be significantly improved after exposing to 300 ℃. While at
600 ℃, the Ca(OH)2 peak disappears completely because it is
decomposed to CaO between 400 ~ 550 ℃ [40,41]. The characteris-
tic peaks of CaO appear in XRD patterns. More hydration products
C-S-H are decomposed at 900 ℃. At this temperature, CaCO3 is
decomposed to CaO and CO2, and the intensity of the characteristic
peak of CaO in XRD spectrum increases significantly.
3.4. TG/DTG analysis
The characteristics of DTA and DSC curves show that the corre-
sponding position, shape and number of peaks are related to the
material properties, so they can present the qualitative character-
ization and identification of substances. TG and DTG curves of car-
bon nanotube concrete with curing period of 28d are shown in
Fig. 13(a) and (b). It is noted that the change rules of TG and
Y. Yao and H. Lu Construction and Building Materials 297 (2021) 123782

Fig. 12. XRD patterns of REF and 0.5CNT samples after exposing to different
temperatures.

DTG curves are similar. Fig. 13 (b) shows the DTG curves of REF,
0.1CNT, 0.3CNT, 0.5CNT and 1.0CNT from room temperature to
1000 ℃, respectively. With increasing of temperature, escape of
free water from the concrete matrix and the dehydration of bound
water in the hydration products are the main reasons for the qual-
ity loss.
In the heating process, the curves contain three main character-
istic peaks, involves temperature range of 50 ~ 110 ℃, 400 ~ 450 ℃
and 600 ~ 700 ℃. The temperature ranges usually correspond to
different material transformations. In the temperature range of
50 ~ 110 ℃, the free water in concrete is volatilized, so the weight
loss rate of concrete is the fastest. The hydration product Ca(OH)2
is dehydrated in concrete from 400 ~ 450 ℃ [34] a peak of acceler-
ated weightlessness is produced on the DTG curves. In the temper-
ature range of 600 ~ 700 ℃, the hydration products C-S-H
transform into b-C2S [42] which is one of the decomposition prod-
ucts of C-S-H at high temperatures [4,43]. In addition, the C-S-H gel
begins to dehydrate at 160 ~ 300 ℃. From 350 ~ 800 ℃, about 85%
water of the C-S-H gel escape and the dehydration reaction is more
completed after 800 ℃. The TG and DTG curves are almost
unchanged after 800 ℃ [34].
There are some substances decomposition or phase transforma-
tion in other temperature ranges. For example, ettringite decom-
poses between 150 ~ 170 ℃ [4,44]. At 573 ℃, quartz crystal in
concrete is transformed rapidly from a-type to b-type [4,40]. Its
volume increases rapidly and suddenly expands, which results in
microcracks in concrete matrix. CaCO3 begins to decompose when
the temperature is higher than 530 ℃. When the temperature rises
to 900 ℃, decarburization and decomposition proceed rapidly, and
a large amount of CaO is generated. The weight loss of concrete
reinforced with carbon nanotubes is relatively small from the TG
curves shown in Fig. 13(a). In addition, the weight loss of these
samples show some difference. Because carbon nanotubes can pro-
mote formation of cement hydration product C-S-H, which
increases the content of C-S-H in concrete. Moreover, carbon nan-
otubes can be nucleation sites and provide a good auxiliary envi-
ronment for the stable growth of hydration products [29]. On the
other hand, in order to ensure the accuracy of test, the concrete
fragments are ground to powder in the thermal analysis. Concrete
is an inhomogeneous material, it is difficult to ensure the consis-
tency of components proportion in the powder concrete samples
(such as the amount of aggregates and hydration products) in the
9
Fig. 13. Thermal analysis of concrete with different carbon nanotube contents (a)
TG results and (b) DTG results.
process of sample collection, which can also lead to the weight loss
difference of samples.
3.5. Mercury intrusion porosimetry analysis
In general, there are three levels of pores in concrete, gel pore
(<10 nm), capillary pore (10 ~ 200 nm) and macropore
(>200 nm). Among them, the isolated gel pores are distributed in
hydration products, and the pores are not filled with hydrated
products. The macropores are the holes brought into concrete
when the concrete is poured [45]. The internal pore structure will
significantly affect its mechanical properties at high temperature.
The pore size distribution curves of carbon nanotube concrete
with different contents at room temperature is shown in Fig. 14.
The pore size distribution curves of REF, 0.1CNT and 0.7CNT sam-
ples are characterized by the largest number of gel pores. For the
REF samples, there are mainly two kinds of pore size distribution
in concrete due to absence of carbon nanotubes, one represents
the pore size around 20 nm, and many other gel holes below
5 nm. The 20 nm pores in plain concrete matrix and the gel pores
below 5 nm are the main reasons for the low strength of plain con-
crete. After incorporation of 0.1 wt% and 0.7 wt% carbon nanotubes
in concrete, the number of capillary pores in the sample decreases,
but the gel pores still dominate the pore structure of the sample. It
is characterized by a similar number of gel pores and capillary
pores among 0.3CNT, 0.5CNT and 1.0CNT. After incorporation of
Y. Yao and H. Lu Construction and Building Materials 297 (2021) 123782

increases with higher carbon nanotubes content. The minimum

value of porosity is observed at 0.3 wt% of the carbon nanotubes
content. The corresponding values of these two curves with respect
to the content of carbon nanotubes is different. This is because not
only porosity of matrix but also tension and bridging of carbon
nanotubes affect the strength of carbon nanotube concrete.

3.6. Porosity–strength relation

The relationship between concrete compressive strength and

porosity proposed by Matusinovic et al. [25] is adopted, as shown
in Eq. (3):

2
p
r ¼ r p0 1  ð3Þ
p0
The equation is to describe the relationship between compres-
sive strength and porosity of plain concrete. For carbon nanotube
concrete, the interior of pore is filled with carbon nanotubes. In
Fig. 14. Pore size distribution of carbon nanotube concrete at room temperature. compression, the carbon nanotubes in the pore and matrix have
tension and bridging effects, thus improves the compressive
0.3 wt%, 0.5 wt% and 1.0 wt% carbon nanotubes in the concrete, the strength of concrete. Therefore, a carbon nanotubes content func-
amount of gel pores below 10 nm decreases significantly, and the tion f CNT is introduced in this work, so that the modified equation
number of 5 ~ 10 nm gel pores is similar to the 20 ~ 50 nm capillary can be used to describe the relationship between the compressive
pores. This is because adding appropriate amount of carbon nan- strength and porosity of carbon nanotube concrete:
otubes will promote the production of hydration products. The
2
new hydration products can fill the gel pores blow 5 nm in the p
matrix, so that the structure of hydration products become more
r ¼ f CNT rp0 1  ð4Þ
p0
compact, and it can effectively improve the strength of concrete
matrix. Compared with the REF samples, the peaks of capillary pore where
of 0.3CNT, 0.5CNT and 1.0CNT samples obviously move to the left, (
0:36x2 þ 0:26x þ 0:960  x < 0:5
which represents increasing of capillary pore size due to aggre- f CNT ¼ ð5Þ
gated carbon nanotubes in the concrete matrix. With further 1:47x2  1:96x þ 1:750:5  x  1:0
increasing of the carbon nanotubes content, the agglomeration
effect of carbon nanotubes becomes stronger. The dispersion effect wherex is the content of carbon nanotubes in concrete (wt%); when
of carbon nanotubes is pronounced in water, which deteriorates the porosity is 0, the compressive strength rp0 is an empirical con-
the pore structure of concrete matrix and thus has a negative stant, which is related to the microstructure of cement, the density
impact on the concrete strength. and hydration products of cement, the size and distribution of par-
Fig. 15 shows the porosity variation curve of concrete with dif- ticle size, and the density of defects;
ferent contents of carbon nanotubes at room temperature. It is p represents the porosity;
noted that the compressive strength curves of carbon nanotube p0 is the porosity at strength 0, namely the porosity of fresh
concrete are opposite to the change of porosity. Thus, the compres- concrete mortar;
sive strength increases first and then decreases with higher nan- r represents the compressive strength of concrete.
otube content, the peak value is around 0.5 wt% of the carbon
nanotubes content; while the porosity decreases first and then

Fig. 15. Porosity variation curve of concrete with different contents of carbon Fig. 16. Relationship between CNT content and the compressive strength of carbon
nanotubes at room temperature. nanotube concrete.

10
Y. Yao and H. Lu
One of the advantages of the Matusinovic model is that
an empirical constant is adopted to take the material compo-
sition into account. A carbon nanotubes content function f CNT
is proposed in the developed model. The modified Matusi-
novic model can be applied to describe the influence of pull-
ing and bridging action of carbon nanotubes on the
relationship between porosity and compressive strength of
concrete. As shown in Fig. 16, the predictions of proposed
model show reasonable accuracy compared with the experi-
mental results.
4. Conclusion
In the current study, mechanical properties of concrete with dif-
ferent contents of carbon nanotube at room temperature, 300 ℃,
600 ℃ and 900 ℃ are investigated. The following conclusions are
drawn:
(1) The compressive strength of carbon nanotube concrete
increases first and then decreases at different temperatures. At
room temperature, the compressive strength reaches the maxi-
mum value when the content of carbon nanotubes is 0.5 wt%. Com-
pared with the plain concrete, the 28d compressive strength of
0.5 wt% carbon nanotube concrete can increase up to 24.5%. The
compressive strength generally shows a downward trend at
temperature higher than 600 ℃ and decreases to the minimum
value at 900 ℃.
(2) At room temperature, with the increasing of carbon nan-
otubes content in concrete, the porosity of the samples first
decreases and then increases. The porosity of concrete reaches
the minimum value when the content of carbon nanotubes is
0.3 wt%, its porosity decreases by 16.4% compared with the plain
concrete. By introducing a carbon nanotube doping function f CNT ,
a modified Matusinovic model is developed to describe the rela-
tionship between porosity and compressive strength of carbon
nanotube concrete.
(3) The morphology change of carbon nanotubes in concrete is
observed by SEM. When the temperature is raised to 600 ℃, the
structure of carbon nanotubes in concrete is destroyed and trans-
formed into a new network structure, which can bridge the con-
crete matrix.
(4) Based on the experimental analysis, a new failure mecha-
nism of carbon nanotube concrete at high temperature is intro-
duced. At 300 ℃, the compressive strength of REF samples
increases more significantly than the carbon nanotube concrete
samples. Because carbon nanotubes in concrete occupy a certain
space, and fill the pores in matrix, which makes the matrix of
carbon nanotube concrete more compact at room temperature.
Compared with the REF samples, the carbon nanotubes fill the
internal space of matrix, which inhibits further hydration reac-
tion of the matrix at 300 ℃. Thus, it makes the newly formed
hydration products of carbon nanotube concrete less than the
REF samples.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Yao Yao: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing, Formal
analysis, Supervision. Hao Lu: Validation, Data curation, Writing,
Visualization.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
11
Construction and Building Materials 297 (2021) 123782
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support by
the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 11772257);
Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (No. 2020JM-103)
and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No.
G2019KY05212).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2021.123782.
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