Analysis of Autogenous and Drying Shrinkage of Concrete

Concrete undergoes volume change as it changes phases from plastic to solid. Volume change due to water movement and losses within the concrete are referred to as chemical and autogenous shrinkage and drying and plastic shrinkage are due to water exchange with the surrounding environment. Shrinkage strains need to be investigated as they can have detrimental effects on the serviceability and durability of concrete. For this study, an experimental program was developed using fractional factorial principles to investigate the effects of curing regime and concrete mixture namely, water to cement ratio (w/c) , water content (w), maximum aggregate size (size), silica fume replacement percent (SF), ground granulated furnace slag replacement percent (GGBFS), and volume of coarse aggregate (CA), on the magnitude of autogenous and dlying shrinkage. A new test setup was developed to measure autogenous shrinkage, capillary pressure and temperature. The results were found to concur with those reported in the literature, i.e., moist cured samples exhibit chemical shrinkage and that air cured samples exhibit both chemical and drying shrinkage and that the magnitude of the latter is muc