Influence of the graphene oxide-coated steel fiber on the microstructure optimization of UHPC

Benefiting from its superior mechanical properties, large specific surface area and abundant oxygen-containing functional groups, graphene oxide (GO) can generate nucleation and pore-infilling effects to optimize the microstructure of the cementitious composites, thus reinforcing the mechanical performance and durability of cement-based materials. However, due to the dispersion issues and relatively high cost, the widespread use of GO in the cement industry has not yet been realized. In the present study, we applied three different methods to coat industrial GO nanosheets on the steel fiber’s surface and reinforce the UHPC microstructure. The proposed coating method effectively disperses GO within the ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) matrix and targets its enhancement effects on the interfacial transition zone (ITZ), which has the weakest pore structure in UHPC. The result presents that the three-step dip method of GO coating on the steel fiber demonstrates higher effectiveness in reinforcing the microstructure of UHPC, the porosity of the matrix is 1.88 %, with a relative decrease of 37.1 ∼ 60.3 %. In addition, the average distance of ITZ after GO enhanced UHPC is about 3.7 µm, about 37.3 %-68.1 % shorter, and the ITZ porosity is 3.8 %, which is 15.6 %-65.5 % lower. With the assistance of the metal intrusion technique, backscattered electron characterization and deep learning-based analysis, the pore structure features of UHPC were extracted with a classification recognition accuracy of 88.5 %, and the pore intrusion volume inside the characteristic region of the UHPC matrix increased by 1.89–2.14 times. The extraction characteristics illustrated that the GO strengthening on steel fibers was more effective in ITZ, with an optimization efficiency of about 8.1 % higher than in other regions. We expect that the findings of this study could provide deep insights into GO modification for cementitious composite reinforcement applications and open new pathways for affordable alternatives to nano-enhanced composites. • GO is successfully coated on steel fiber via the three-step dip coating method. • The coating method concentrates on reinforcing effects on ITZ while dispersing GO. • The microstructure optimization effects of GO coating reinforcement are analyzed. • The DTD algorithm locates enhanced features in UHPC after GO modification.