To investigate the impact of silica fume on the microstructure and salt frost resistance of recycled concrete in the Hetao saline-alkali area of Inner Mongolia,we prepared recycled concrete(RAC)with varying silica fume content for cyclic salt freeze-thaw tests,chloride ion permeation resistance tests,and scanning electron microscopy(SEM)analysis.Our findings reveal that the microstructure of RAC becomes denser due to the influence of spheri-cal silica fume particles.This leads to an initial decrease followed by an increase in the mass loss rate,cubic com-pressive strength loss rate,and chloride ion mobility coefficient of RAC with rising silica fume content.However,the relative dynamic elastic modulus of RAC with 10%and 15%silica fume content shows minimal disparity after salt-frost cycles.Overall,the optimal salt-frost resistance is achieved when silica fume content is at 10%.In the RC10 group,the mass loss rate,cube compressive strength loss rate,and chloride ion mobility coefficient are only 54.3%,50.3%,and 49.81%of those of RCO group respectively after 90 salt-frost cycles.Additionally,we devel-oped a freeze-thaw damage model accounting for silica fume content and freeze-thaw cycle number to predict the service lifespan of RAC in saline-alkali regions of Inner Mongolia.
recycled concretesilica fumesalt freezing cyclemicrostructureservice life prediction