CVL871 – Durability and

Repair of Concrete Structures

Lecture 3
Shashank Bishnoi
 Dimensional stability and
cracking in concrete

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Early-age cracking
 Chemical shrinkage
 Autogenous shrinkage
 Drying shrinkage
 Swelling
 Thermal cracking

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Cracking in concrete

Mehta and Monteiro

2006, after Concrete
Society, U.K.

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Early age cracking in concrete
 Early age cracking may be due to
various reasons:
 High thermal gradients
 Autogenous shrinkage or self-dessication
 Drying of concrete
 Rapid evaporation of bleed water before
setting
 Early removal of formwork
 Improper compaction

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Chemical shrinkage
The hydrated products are unable to completely occupy the water filled pores, therefore
developing capillary pores inside the concrete. These pores lead to shrinkage of concrete.

Air
Water
Volume fraction

Hydrates

Unhydrated cement

Progress of hydration
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 Chemical shrinkage is defined as the absolute (internal)

Chemical shrinkage volume change of cement paste that results from the
hydration of cemen-titious materials.

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Dilatometry

8 ASTM C1608
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Chemical and autogenous shrinkage

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Chemical and autogenous shrinkage

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Subsidence

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Defnition of autogenous shrinkage
 Autogenous shrinkage is the
macroscopic volume reduction of
cementitious materials when cement
hydrates after initial setting.
 It does not include volume change due
to loss of ingress of substances,
temperature variation, application of an
external force and restraint
When excess water begins to evaporate from the concrete’s surface after placing, compacting, finishing and
curing, an air/water interface or “meniscus” is set up within the capillary pores of the cement paste of the
concrete. Because water has a very high surface tension, this causes a stress to be exerted on the internal
walls of the capillaries or pores where the meniscus has formed. This stress is in the form of an inward pulling
force that tends to close up the capillary pore. Thus the volume of the capillary is reduced leading to shrinkage
of the cement paste around the aggregates, leading to an overall reduction in volume.

Japan Concrete Institute

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Self-dessication

Klimas and Foresman, Wikipedia

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Measurement of autog. shrinkage
 Autogenous shrinkage can be expressed
as the percentage of volume reduction
“autogenous shrinkage ratio” or one-
dimensional length change “autogenous
shrinkage strain”

Japan Concrete Institute

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Efect of restraint

PCA
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Sources of restraint
 Subgrade
 End members
 Reinforcement
 Due to internal variation in strains

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Gravimetric method

Setter and Roy 1978

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Efect of membranes

Lura and Jensen 2005

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Linear method

Buil 1979
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Linear method

Jensen and Hansen 1995

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Linear method

Jaouadi 2008
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Free shrinkage

Riding et al. 2008

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Restrained shrinkage

Riding et al. 2008

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Ring test

The inner diameter will try to get smaller with time because
the concrete tries to shrink. The inner ring does not let it to
shrink, so on the outer surface the crack starts to develop.

The restrained ring test facilitates the prediction of cracking resistance and is suitable for evaluating the tensile
creep behavior of concrete exposed to drying. Creep in Concrete is defined as deformation of structure under
sustained load. The paste which is creeping under load is restrained by aggregate which do not creep. The
stronger the aggregate the more is the restraining effect and hence the less is the magnitude of creep.
ASTM C1581
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Ring test

www.cement.org
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Concretes susceptible to AS
 Concretes with low w/c (0.25-0.42)
Lower the water content, higher the surface tension.

 Concretes with high binder content

(450-600 kg/m3) More the cement, more will the water get consumed for
hydration, hence lack of water means higher surface tension.

 Concretes with silica fume

Silica fume and GGBS lead to the formation of fine capillary pores, which further increases the surface tension inside the capillary.

 Concretes with fnely ground slag

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Efect of w/c

Pigeon et al. 2003

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Efect of silica fume

Zhang et al. 2003

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Concretes less susceptible to AS
 Concretes with higher water to cement
ratio
 Concretes with fy-ashes
Flyash replaces cement, thus reduces water requirement, so capillaries remain filled with water, No AS

 Concretes with low heat cement Low heat cement causes less heat loss, so less water loss, so less AS

 Concrete with porous aggregates

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Mitigating autogenous shrinkage
 Increase water to cement ratio
 External curing
 Internal curing
 Shrinkage reducing admixtures
 Optimising aggregate packing

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Optimising packing of aggregates

www.cement.org
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Infuence of curing on vol. change

PCA
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Lightweight aggregate

33 Bentz 2009
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Efect of LWAs

Lura 2003
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Swelling
 Swelling in normal concrete is 5 to 10%
of shrinkage in the long term
 In light-weight aggregate concretes, it
can be as much as 25% to 80% of the
shrinkage

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Shrinkage reducing admixtures
 Reduce surface tension of water by up
to 50%
 Some sulphate based SRAs can cause
expansion to counteract shrinkage
The shrinkage reducing admixtures operates by interfering with the surface chemistry of the air/water
interface within the capillary or pore, reducing surface tension effects and consequently reducing the
shrinkage as water evaporates from within the concrete

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 In contrast to other concrete admixtures, they are used in rather large amounts.

Efect of SRAs
This is because the interfacial area at which they must act (liquid–vapor) increases
radically in the course of drying. Indeed, hardened cementitious materials have
large internal surface area, which when covered only by liquid films, provides a
very large interfacial area where the SRAs must remain active.

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Efect of fy ashes

Swelling

Shrinking

Riding et al. 2008

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Modelling autogenous shrinkage

Kelvin-Laplace equation, from Bentz 2006

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Efect of relaxation
 Relaxation at early age can signifcantly
reduce strains
 Creep usually depends on elastic
properties and relative humidity
 SRAs can reduce creep and relaxation
Creep is an increase in plastic strain under constant stress.
Stress relaxation is a decrease in stress under constant strain.

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Efect of relaxation

Mehta and Monteiro 2006

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Thermal + autogenous deformation
 Most real concretes are not isothermal
 In reality the total stresses are
combination of thermal and autogenous
deformations
 Other processes such as drying may also
occur at the same time

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Thermal deformations
 Thermal deformations may be uniform
or non-uniform depending on
temperature distribution
 If the temperature of the sample is
measured, thermal efects may be
decoupled
 This would require the assumption that
temperature does not afect rate of
hydration

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Thermal shrinkage

Mehta and Monteiro 2006

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Heating due to hydration

Riding et al. 2008

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Thermal cracking

Richardson 2007
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Plastic shrinkage
 Shrinkage on the surface of plastic
concrete
 Rate of evaporation > rate of bleeding
 Wind
 High temperature
 Autogenous shrinkage

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Plastic shrinkage

Geiker 2004
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Plastic shrinkage

PCA
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Prevention of plastic shrinkage
 Minimisation of evaporation surface
3  Fogging
6  Wind-breaks
5  Shading
1  Plastic sheet covers
 Wet burlap
4  Spray-on fnishing aids
2  Plastic fbers

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Plastic settlement cracking
 Occurs when bleeding is large
 Restraint, e.g. reinforcement
 Prevention
 Reduction in bleeding
 Reduction of restraint

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Drying shrinkage
 Concrete shrinks on the removal of
water
 Also happens in mature concrete
 Similar to creep, drying shrinkage is due
to loss of water from fne capillaries
 Diferential drying may occur due to
higher drying on surface
1. Loss of water from capillary pores
2. Loss of water from CSH gel pores
3. Loss of water from in-between CSH layers

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Factors afecting drying shrinkage
More the volume fraction of aggregates, lesser
 Volume fraction of aggregates will be cement, lesser will the water be
consumed, hence more drying shrinkage takes
place.

 Grading of aggregates Poor grading will lead to strains in concrete,

hence drying shrinkage can not be restrained.

 Aggregate type Suppose porous aggregates are there, then it will keep supplying
water, leading to more drying shrinkage

Elastic modulus of concrete

Higher the elastic modulus, more the stiffne
 concrete, hence lesser will be tendency of c
to yield upon shrinkage, lesser the shrinkag

 Creep in concrete More the creep, more the relaxation, lesser the shrinkage (more the shrinkage
)

 Relative humidity

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Efect of w/c

Mehta and Monteiro 2006

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Efect of relative humidity

Mehta and Monteiro 2006

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Efect of dimensions of sample

Mehta and Monteiro 2006

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Drying shrinkage vs. curing temp.

PCA
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Efects of fbers and silica fume
 1: Plain concrete
 2: Concrete with
carbon fbers,
methylcellulose and
colloids
 3: Concrete with silica
fume, triethanolamine,
potassium aluminium
sulphate and sodium
sulphate
 4: All of the above
Chen and Chung 1996
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Reversibility of drying shrinkage

The extent to which concrete can swell upon

wetting is known as reversible shrinkage.

Mehta and Monteiro 2006

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Swelling

PCA
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Swelling and drying shrinkage

Swelling is overall beneficial, since the resistance to swelling caused by

restraints such as aggregates and reinforcing bars causes a compression in
the paste. This pre-compression is able to compensate for the tensile
stresses that get generated by shrinkage.

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Changes in hardened concrete
 Temperature and moisture changes in
hardened concrete can lead to
diferential strains
 Expansion on one side and contraction
on the other can lead to curling or
warping

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Curling (Warping)

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Curling of a wall panel

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Carbonation shrinkage
 At around 50% RH carbonation can
cause signifcant shrinkage
 Overall, apart from reduction of pH,
carbonation can stabilise concrete
 Precast concrete bricks may be
precarbonated to
 Increase their strength
 Reduce drying shrinkage
Carbonation increases the level of drying shrinkage, at RH levels around 50%. At high RH levels (> 95%), the
absorption of CO2 does not easily occur through the saturated pores. At very low RH levels (~ 50%),
dissolution of CH does not occur, and as a consequence, carbonation cannot take place.

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Construction joints

PCA
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Summary
 Chemical shrinkage
 Autogenous shrinkage
 Cause
 Measurement
 Modelling
 Mitigation
 Thermal efects
 Plastic shrinkage
 Drying shrinkage
 Swelling
 Carbonation shrinkage
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 Thank you!

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