Description:
Abstract The frost damage of façade materials, especially bricks, is still a problem of importance, mainly for historical constructions. Existing tests like the freeze-thaw test (CDF test) use conditions of full water saturation and very low freezing temperatures, which most likely occur rather rarely in practice. Therefore, we conducted experiments on bricks with different moisture levels, using impulse excitation to determine the change in Young’s modulus as damage assessment. The results show a strong decrease in Young’s modulus and a clear dependence of the damage on the moisture content. We applied the results to a novel frost assessment method, which differentiates the damage potential of different parts of the pore system, based on the present temperature and moisture content.