Cement Chemistry
IMPACT OF W/C ON THE INTERNAL STRESS IN HARDENED CEMENT PASTE DURING FREEZING AND THAWING
2016 Volume 70 Issue 1 Pages 16-23
Details
2016 Volume 70 Issue 1 Pages 16-23
Concrete is one of the most commonly-used materials in construction of infrastructure public assets. However, exposure to exogenous damaging agents makes concrete significantly vulnerable during its life span.
For example, freezing-thaw phenomenon affecting the durability of concrete products should be taken into consideration. To address this need, this study focuses on analysis of internal stresses/strains generated in hardened cements paste due to freezing-thawing cycles.
Moreover, effects of various water to cement binder ratios（W/C）on the strain/stress were characterized at different temperatures, ranging from -40℃ to ＋10℃.
Results showed that two trends between the internal stress/strain and temperature could be found, which depend on W/C ratio. Also, the results indicated that curves of stress/strain-temperature of cement pastes of W/C of 30％, 40％, and 70％ are comparable, while it is different for W/C of 50％ and 60％.
The reason behind this observation can be that samples with similar curves have relatively uniform internal structure, but the other samples have anisotropy in their internal structure.
