Surface drying characteristic of early-age concrete considering cement hydration process

Abstract

In this paper, the surface drying characteristics of concretes under different curing conditions were studied. The surface factors were obtained and an improved theoretical model of surface factor considering cement hydration progress was proposed. The results show that the surface factors of concrete under different curing conditions conform to the two-stage model, and correspond to the moisture saturation and decline period of concrete surface respectively. The surface factor of each concrete is almost the same in the moisture saturation period. However, the surface factor in the moisture decline period is strongly related to the concrete strength grade, curing conditions. In this paper, the area parameter ψ_s is introduced to fully consider the change of pore structure of concrete surface during moisture decline period, and a two-stage theoretical model of concrete surface factor considering the hydration process of cement is proposed.

Keywords:

• Concrete
• surface drying
• surface factor
• cement hydration
• theoretical model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation of China (No. 51908550, U1934206) and The National Key Research and Development Program of China (2020YFC1909900).