Flexural Performance and Toughness Characteristics of Geogrid-Reinforced Pervious Concrete with Different Aggregate Sizes

Pervious concrete is an environmentally friendly paving material to reduce surface runoff in urban construction. However, due to low flexural strength and cracking susceptibility caused by the high porosity, pervious concrete is only used in low-volume traffic roadways and parking lots for current service. This study investigated the permeability, strength, and flexural performance of pervious concrete with different coarse aggregate size, geogrid position, and geogrid layer number. Test results indicate that the geogrid placed at an appropriate position in pervious concrete improved the permeability and compressive strength. Four-point bending tests were conducted in the laboratory to evaluate the flexural performance and toughness characteristics of pervious concrete beam. Meanwhile, this study also proposed a new evaluation method to distinguish the contribution of geogrids and concrete mixture to the flexural toughness of pervious concrete beam at the pre-peak and post-peak stages by two toughness indices. Test results indicate that geogrids improved the flexural strength, deformability, and energy absorption capability of pervious concrete beam. The geogrids placed at both one-third and two-thirds of the heights of pervious concrete beam resulted in the optimum flexural performance. Besides, the small size (5–10 mm) aggregates were conducive to providing high flexural strength for the geogrid-reinforced pervious concrete beam, while the large size (10–15 mm) aggregates played a significant role in obtaining noteworthy post-cracking performance.