ASSESMENT OF CRACKING INDEX AND CHARACTERISTIC CONTRACTION DUE TO CONCRETE’SHRINKAGE

References: 13th SGEM GeoConference on Nano, Bio And Green – Technologies For A Sustainable Future, www.sgem.org, SGEM2013 Conference Proceedings, ISBN 978-619-7105-06-3 / ISSN 1314-2704, June 16-22, 2013, 361 - 368 pp

ABSTRACT

Degradation of concrete structural elements due to shrinkage of concrete, during its drying, usually leads to significant costs of repairing. This is the main reason due to which shrinkage reducing admixtures or additives should be added to concrete composition. Experimental tests on different compositions of mortars and concretes, having portland cement as binder, were made using shrinkage reducing admixtures available on the specific market. Introduction of two new coefficients for a better characterization of concrete shrinkage it is presented into this paper. "Characteristic shrinkage" and "cracking index" were established based on experimental test shrinkage measurements, made on selected compositions.

Keywords: concrete, durability, shrinkage, crack evaluation.