An adaptive approach for the chloride diffusivity of cement-based materials

Adaptive schemes are constructed in this paper for modeling the effective chloride diffusion coefficient of cementbased materials (paste and concrete). Based on the polarization approximations for the effective conductivity of isotropic multicomponent materials, we develop some fitting procedures to include more information about the materials, to improve the accuracy of the scheme. The variable reference parameter of the approximation involves a few free scalars, which are determined through the available numerical or experimental values of the macroscopic chloride diffusion coefficient of cement paste or concrete at some volume proportions of the component materials. The various factors that affect the chloride diffusivity of cement-based material (porous material structure, uncertainty of value of the chloride diffusion coefficient in water-saturated pore spaces, etc.) may be accounted to make the predictions more accurate. Illustrations of applications are provided in a number of examples to show the usefulness of the approach.