Radial gas-permeability measurement in cement-based materials under steady-state flow

Abstract An innovative apparatus guided by a proposed theoretical-model was developed for evaluating the radial gas-permeability of cement-based materials under steady-state flow. The testing condition is of higher inlet-gas pressure in an annular concrete cavity to monitor the pressure decrease over time. The gas-tightness for the cavity was effectively enhanced and quantitatively characterized by an ingenious silicone-rubber washer with embedded flexible sensors. The radial gas-permeabilities of the annular concrete with different water-to-cement (w/c) ratios of 0.35–0.55 were measured using various inlet-gas pressures (1.0 bar–30.0 bars) and compared to those obtained by the traditional axial-direction method. The results show that the concrete gas permeability in radial-direction reaches stable permeability zone (SPZ) with inlet-gas pressure exceeding 6.0 bars, which is faster than the SPZ with inlet-gas pressure exceeding 15.0 bars of the axial-direction gas permeability obtained by the traditional method. Under the same inlet-gas pressures of 6.0 bars–10.0 bars, the intrinsic permeability values in the radial and axial directions are near to each other with the standard deviations of 2.83%∼9.90% while the apparent permeability values in the radial direction are lower than those in the axial direction by reductions of 3.69%∼21.89%. The evolution of apparent gas permeability in radial-direction obeys well the typical model with the low coefficients of variation from 1.01% to 12.55%, indicating that the as-obtained apparatus combined with the proposed theoretical-model can quantitatively and accurately evaluate the radial-direction gas permeability of cement-based materials.