Abstract
The current paper presents the results of early-age restrained shrinkage (RS) tests on Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) concretes incorporating admixed polypropylene fiber (PP). Four concrete mixtures made with OPC containing various volume fractions of PP fiber were tested. Two identical specimens of each mixture were tested: one subjected to fully restrained conditions and the other allowed to shrink freely, both under the drying conditions of 23°C and 50% relative humidity at the age of 24 h. Direct and indirect tensile tests were also performed in the same concretes to monitor the tensile strength development. With increasing fiber contents in mixture, the tensile strength, creep and elastic modulus characteristics have not significantly changed during the first week of age. Increasing the volume fractions of PP fiber significantly delayed the time of cracking owing to the delayed onset of RS, which is beneficial to crack resistance.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
ACI Committee 224-89 (1991) Control of cracking in concrete structures (ACI 224R-90). American Concrete Institute, Detroit
Aly T, Sanjayan JG (2007) Shrinkage cracking properties of slag-concretes with 1-day curing. Mag Concr Res 60(1):41–48
Grzbowski M, Shah SP (1990) Shrinkage cracking of fiber reinforced concrete. ACI Mater J 87(2):138–148
Sivakumar A, Santhanam M (2007) A quantitative study on the plastic shrinkage cracking in high strength hybrid fibre reinforced concrete. Cem Concr Compos 29:575–581
Liu L, Wang P, Yang X (2005) Effects of characteristics of polypropylene fiber on anti-dry-shrinkage cracking property of cement mortar. J Build Mater 8(3):239–243
Banthia N, Gupta R (2006) Influence of polypropylene fiber geometry on plastic shrinkage cracking in concrete. Cem Concr Res 36:1263–1267
Chunxiang Q, Fei G, Li L (2005) Mechanism research on improvement of resistance to plastic shrinkage and cracking of cement mortar by polypropylene fibers. J Southeast Univ 35(5):786–791
Swamy RN, Stavrides H (1979) Influence of fiber reinforcement on restrained shrinkage and cracking. Am Concr Inst J 76(3):443–460
Shah HR, Weiss J (2006) Quantifying shrinkage cracking in fiber reinforced concrete using the ring test. Mater Struct 39:887–889
Sanjuan MA, Andrade C, Bentur A (1998) Effect of polypropylene fibre reinforced mortars on steel reinforcement corrosion induced by carbonation. Mater Struct 31(5):343–349
Strong H, Mobasher B, Shah SP (1990) Quantitative damage characterization in polypropylene fiber reinforced concrete. Cem Concr Res 20:540–558
Neville AM (1998) Properties of concrete, 4th edn. Wiley, New York
Zhang J, Li VC (2001) Influence of fibers on drying shrinkage of fiber-reinforced cementitious composite. J Eng Mech ASCE 127(1):37–44
Aly T, Sanjayan JG, Collins F (2008) Effect of polypropylene fibers on shrinkage and cracking of OPC and slag concretes. Mater Struct 41(10):1741–1753
Kovler K (1994) Testing system for determining the mechanical behaviour of early age concrete under restrained and free uniaxial shrinkage. Mater Struct 27(170):324–330
Aly T, Sanjayan JG (2008) Factors contributing to early age shrinkage cracking of slag concretes subjected to 7-days moist curing. Mater Struct 41(4):633–642
ASTM C496-04 (2004) Standard test method for splitting tensile strength of cylindrical concrete specimens. ASTM International, 5 pp
Cook RA, Hover KC (1993) Mercury porosimetry of cement-based materials and associated correction factors. ACI Mater J 90:152–161
Toutanji H, McNeil S, Bayasi Z (1998) Chloride permeability and impact resistance of polypropylene-fiber-reinforced silica fume concrete. Cem Concr Res 28(7):961–968
Collins F, Sanjayan JG (2000) Effect of pore size distribution on drying shrinkage of alkali activated slag concrete. Cem Concr Res 30(9):1401–1406
Kovler K (1995) Interdependence of creep and shrinkage for concrete under tension. J Mater Civ Eng 7(2):96–101
Naaman AE, Wongtanakitcharoen T, Hauser G (2005) Influence of different fibers on plastic shrinkage cracking of concrete. ACI Mater J 102(1):49–58
Wongtanakitcharoen T, Naaman AE (2007) Unrestrained early age shrinkage of concrete with polypropylene, PVA, and carbon fibers. Mater Struct, Rilem 40:289–300
Altoubat SA (2000) Early age stresses and creep-shrinkage interaction of restrained concrete. Doctoral thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, p 219
IUPAC (1972) Manual of symbols and terminology, appendix 2, part 1, colloid and surface chemistry. Pure Appl Chem 31:577–638
Juenger MCG, Jennings HM (2002) Examining the relationship between the microstructure of calcium silicate hydrate and drying shrinkage of cement pastes. Cem Concr Res 32:289–296
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Independent Cement and Lime Pty Ltd (ICL) (Industry Partner) and the Australian Research Council (Linkage Project Grant No. LP0349121) for this research project. Assistance from David Huggett with the tests and the laboratory assistance provided by technical staff Graeme Rundle, Jeff Doddrell and Kevin Nievaart are also gratefully acknowledged.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Aly, T., Sanjayan, J.G. Shrinkage-cracking behavior of OPC-fiber concrete at early-age. Mater Struct 43, 755–764 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-009-9526-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-009-9526-7