Modeling concrete under severe conditions as a multiphase material

The description as well as the prediction of the behavior of concrete under severe high temperature–pressure loading such as those typical of a loss-of-coolant accidental scenario considered for PWR containment buildings, matter in the study of such engineering applications and are also of interest in other fields such as safety evaluations during fire. The purpose of this paper is to present a flexible staggered finite element thermo-hygral model and then to use it as a numerical tool to determine the temperature and gas pressure fields that develop in concrete when heated.