Farhan, Nabeel Abed
(2011)
Influence Of Different Curing Conditions On High Performance Concrete Containing Silica Fume.
Masters thesis, Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Abstract
This experiment is done to study of influence of different curing conditions on high performance concrete (HPC) containing silica fume. Silica fume is pozzolanic material that exhibits a considerable influence in enhancing the mechanical and durability properties of concrete. In this experiment, total of two mixes were made of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) as a control mix and OPC replaced with 10% silica fume as a HPC. The water to a binder ratio was kept constant at 0.44. An experimental program was performed to study the compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, change in length, modulus of elasticity, flexural strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), water absorption, porosity, and hardened density tests. Insufficient curing can also lead to serious defects such as plastic shrinkage, cracking, and excessive drying shrinkage. These cracks increase in return permeability and decrease the compressive strength; as a result, it causes a decrease in concrete durability. Samples are curing by five methods such as immersing specimens in water, spraying specimens with water (fog room), steam curing at an ordinary pressure at 60 0C temperature for 16 hours with a delay period of 3 hours at room, cold weather curing was applied at 10 0C, and natural weather curing was applied at 28 0C as an average to cure the cube, prism and cylinder specimens until the day of testing. Test results indicate that steam cured concrete containing silica fume shows higher compressive strength at the early age but lower than immersing specimens in water and fog curing methods at 28 days. In general findings of this study suggest that Steam curing is a heat treatment method which has been used to speed up the strength development of concrete products, especially in producing precast concrete. The samples are containing silica fume should be cured by water curing to achieve well hardened properties.
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