ABSTRACT
Abstract In this study, the prediction of hardening young concrete shrinkage and autogenous shrinkage is attempted using a solidification model based on microphysical information of temperature, hydration ratio, porosity, saturation, isotherm and others. The micro-scale surface tension is treated as a driving force for the shrinkage associated with and without water migration. The solidification model is expected to offer the deformability of hardening concrete under estimated capillary stress by the thermo-dynamic computation. The solid model deals with cement paste as the solidified finite fictitious clusters having each creep property. Aggregates are idealized as suspended continuum media of perfect elasticity. The combination of both phases may create overall features of concrete composite under unstable transient situations at early age. Experiments are performed to check the properties of cement paste matrix and a parametric study is conducted to verify the functionality of the model proposed. The predicted shrinkage strain, obtained from the model, is compared with experimental data. Keywords: Autogenous shrinkage, microphysics, multiphase material, shrinkage, solidification, young concrete
1 Introduction
Needs of predicting behaviors of early aged concrete have always been encountered, especially, in the case of massive concrete such as dams or raft foundation. These types of structures are always subjected to rather huge temperature gradients leading to thermal cracking. This makes it of great importance to be able to predict correctly the early age behavior of these structures such as drying shrinkage and creep.
