Cracking Potential of Internally Cured Self Compacting Concrete with Fly Ash
摘要
Self-Compacting Concrete owing to its improved workability flows and fills the formwork without any external vibration. The workability is generally enhanced by several methods such as the addition of supplementary cementitious materials, including viscosity-enhancing agents, etc. The usage of supplementary cementitious materials for improved workability is more popular. However, this imposes a problem of shrinkage cracking. This study focuses on the reduction of shrinkage cracking in Self Compacting Concrete with Fly ash employing internal curing. SCC mixes with different percentages (30–50%) of fly ash have been selected for the study and two internal curing materials namely Super Absorbent Polymers (SAP) and Lightweight Expanded Clay Aggregates (LECA). The cracking potential of the specimens under restrained conditions was studied according to ASTM C 1581-04. The results have shown that the SCC specimens without internal curing have shown a higher potential for cracking and the specimens with internal curing materials has been found to be moderate-low. It was also found out that the presence of fly ash delayed the net cracking time of mixes under all curing conditions.