Modeling early age hydration reaction and predicting compressive strength of cement paste mixed with expansive additives

Abstract

Abstract Although expansive additives have been widely used to efficiently reduce shrinkage cracking in concrete, little research has been undertaken to model the hydration reaction of cement and expansive additive blends. This paper presents a hydration model that describes the hydration reaction that occurs when expansive additives are mixed at an early stage and an equation to predict the compressive strength of expansive concrete. Using the proposed model, this study predicted the hydration degree, rate of heat evolution, and gel/space ratio of the hardening cement–expansive additive paste. The results indicated good agreement of the calculated data with the measured data. From the relationship between the gel/space ratio and compressive strength, an equation was deduced for prediction of the development of compressive strength of expansive concrete. Furthermore, this work also found that the model parameters can be represented as a function of the mineral composition of the cement. The results demonstrate that the proposed model is effective and useful in predicting the hydration and mechanical properties of expansive concrete.