Cement and Concrete Research 31 (2001) 1203 – 1206

A study on creep and drying shrinkage of high performance concrete

Li Jianyong*, Yao Yan
Research Institute of Cement and New Building Materials, China Building Materials Academy, Guanzhuang, Chaoyang, Beijing 100024, China

Received 3 January 2001; accepted 10 May 2001

Abstract

Creep and drying shrinkage are two important time-dependent properties of high-performance concrete (HPC). In this study, three groups
of HPC with same mix proportioning except the type of binding materials were prepared. Their creep behaviour and drying shrinkage
characteristics were measured in accordance with the Chinese Standard GBJ82-85. The effects of ultrafine ground granulated blast-furnace
slag (GGBS) and silica fume (SF) on creep and drying shrinkage of HPC were compared and the mechanism was analysed. D 2001 Elsevier
Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: High-performance concrete; Creep; Shrinkage; Granulated blast-furnace slag; Silica fume; Compressive strength; Workability

1. Introduction investigate the creep and drying shrinkage behaviour of

these HPCs and compare the effects of different binding
The creep of concrete refers to deformation of hardened materials in concrete.
concrete caused by a long-lasting constant load applied on
it. Drying shrinkage of concrete is the shrinkage caused by
evaporation of internal water in hardened concrete. Creep 2. Experimental
and drying shrinkage are very important time-dependent
properties of high-performance concrete (HPC), they are in 2.1. Materials
direct relation to the performance of HPC in concrete
structures. With the rapid development of HPC in the world, Three binding materials used in the study including
more and more attention has been paid to the creep and portland cement, ultrafine GGBS and SF were all manu-
drying shrinkage behaviour of HPC. In China, there are factured in China. Their chemical compositions and proper-
many research projects at present concentrating on raw ties are presented in Table 1. The strength grade of cement
materials, mixture design, properties and construction tech- was R525 according to Chinese Standard GB175-85. The
nology of HPC. Ground granulated blast-furnace slag coarse aggregate used was crushed limestone with a density
(GGBS) and silica fume (SF) have been used to produce of 2.65  103 kg/m3, its maximum particle size is 20 mm.
HPC as supplementary binding materials for a long time. As The fine aggregate was quartz sand with a density of
well known to all, the ultrafine GGBS that has a very large 2.7  103 kg/m3 and a fineness modulus of 3.0. A naphtha-
specific surface of often to be more than 600 m2/kg will lene superplasticizer (SP) was used to keep the water –
play a substantially different role in concrete from that of binder ratio of concrete at a very low level. The properties
normal GGBS with a specific surface range of 300– 400 m2/ of the SP are shown in Table 2.
kg. The authors have conducted extensive research on
ultrafine GGBS HPC in the past several years. In this study, 2.2. Mix proportioning of HPC
portland cement, ultrafine GGBS and SF were used to
prepare three groups of HPC. The aim of this study is to Three groups of HPC mixtures were designed, that is,
Concrete A, B and C, their mix proportioning is listed in
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86-10-65761331 ext. 2605; fax: +86-
Table 3. These three concrete mixtures were of same mix
10-65761714. proportioning except the type of binding materials. Only
E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Li). portland cement was used as binder in Concrete A. In

0008-8846/01/$ – see front matter D 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 0 0 8 - 8 8 4 6 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 5 3 9 - 7
1204 J. Li, Y. Yao / Cement and Concrete Research 31 (2001) 1203–1206

Table 1 Table 3
Chemical compositions (%) and properties of binding materials Mix proportioning (kg/m3) and workability (cm) of HPC
Chemical compositions Mix proportioning Workability
a 2 b c a b c
Binder SiO2 Al2O3 CaO MgO Fe2O3 SS (m /kg) SG APS (mm) Concrete C GGBS SF SP (%) CA FA Water Slump Slump flow
Cement 19.95 4.71 60.58 1.41 2.90 314 3.1  40 A 600 – – 1.6 1134 610 156 22.5 49.0
GGBS 34.35 15.26 36.80 9.10 1.40  800 2.9 2.5 B 420 180 – 1.6 1134 610 156 24.5 67.0
SF 91.25 0.47 0.43 0.93 0.91  20,000 2.2 0.2 C 360 180 60 1.6 1134 610 156 24.0 56.0
a a
Specific surface. Cement.
b b
Specific gravity. Coarse aggregate.
c c
Average particle size. Fine aggregate.

Concrete B, ultrafine GGBS replaced cement by 30% of lasted for 180 days. The specimens were initially loaded
cement weight, while in Concrete C 40% of cement was to 40% of the 28-day axial compressive strength of
substituted by ultrafine GGBS (30% of cement weight) and concrete. The drying shrinkage test was conducted simul-
SF (10% of cement weight). The dosage of SP in all taneously with creep test at the same temperature. A
concrete mixtures was kept constant at 1.6% of total weight comparator was used to measure the drying shrinkage
of binder. of concrete specimens.

2.3. Test of concrete

3. Results and analyses
The raw materials of concrete were put in a forced mixer
at the same time and were mixed for 3 min. When mixing 3.1. Compressive strength and splitting tensile strength
was ended, the workability of fresh concrete including
slump and slump flow was measured at once. The slump The experimental results of concrete strengths are listed
flow is the spread diameter of slumped concrete cone. The in Table 4.
result is listed in Table 3. As shown in Table 4, Concrete B and C acquired much
The mixture was cast into test specimens in mold by higher compressive strength and splitting tensile strength
vibration at temperature of 20 ± 2
C. The specimens were than Concrete A at each testing age. At the age of 3 days,
demolded at 1 day and then cured in water of temperature of the compressive strengths of concrete A, B and C were 63.8,
20 ± 3
C. 69.3 and 69.3 MPa, respectively. At 28 days of age, the
The properties of hardened concrete such as com- compressive strengths of Concrete B and C increased
pressive strength, splitting tensile strength, creep and greatly to 100.4 and 104.0 MPa, respectively, compared
drying shrinkage were investigated. The cubic speci- with 81.1 MPa of Concrete A. The development of splitting
mens for compressive strength and splitting tensile tensile strength showed the same tendency as that of
strength test were of dimensions of 10  10  10 cm. compressive strength. Such a tendency reflects the strength-
The specimens for creep and drying shrinkage test ening effect of ultrafine GGBS and SF on mechanical
were prisms, with dimensions of 10  10  30 and properties of concrete.
10  10  50 cm, respectively. For all properties, the
average of experimental results of three identical speci- 3.2. Creep
mens was adopted.
The compressive and splitting tensile strengths were The experimental results of creep test for three groups of
tested according to Chinese Standard GBJ82-85. At ages concrete are shown in Fig. 1.
of 3, 7 and 28 days, the specimens were taken out of water It is seen from Fig. 1 that during the whole period of test
and tested for strength at a temperature range of 20 ± 2
C. (from 1 day until 180 days), the two groups of HPC
Creep and drying shrinkage were tested according to containing supplementary binders (Concrete B and C)
Chinese Standard GBJ82-85 at the age of 28 days. The always obtained much smaller creep value than portland
creep test was carried out at temperature of 20 ± 3
C and

Table 4
Strengths (MPa) of HPC
Table 2
Properties of SP Compressive strength Splitting tensile strength
Dosage Concrete 3 days 7 days 28 days 3 days 7 days 28 days
SGa pH (cement wt.%) Colour Main component A 63.8 71.2 81.1 3.80 4.54 5.54
1.18 7–8 0.75 – 2 yellow Sulphonate naphthalene B 69.3 83.2 100.4 4.06 5.03 5.91
a
Specific gravity. C 69.3 87.0 104.0 5.20 5.44 6.14
 J. Li, Y. Yao / Cement and Concrete Research 31 (2001) 1203–1206 1205

cement and is almost wholly composed of glass phase,

which offer the ability of hydration to GGBS. The
content of glass phase in the ultrafine GGBS used in
this study is more than 98%. SF used here contains more
than 90% of amorphous SiO2, the average particle size of
SF is only about 0.2 mm. Especially, the GGBS used here
has been ground to an ultrafine state with specific surface
greater than 800 m2/kg, and its average particle size is 2.5
mm. These chemical and physical characteristics make
ultrafine GGBS and SF very active in reacting with
Fig. 1. Development of creep of concrete. hydrates of cement.
Extensive researches have proved that the both materials
can apparently promote hydration of cement and react with
cement concrete A. When ultrafine GGBS and SF were used CH crystal hydrates so as to increase the amount of C-S-H
at the same time (Concrete C), the creep value was the gel hydrates and the density of hardened cement paste [5–
lowest, which is in accordance with the development trend 7]. Some researchers even discovered that ultrafine GGBS
of mechanical strengths. At test age of 180 days, the creep and SF would exert a synergistic effect on facilitating
value for Concrete A, B and C was 1293  10 6 , cement hydration when they are used simultaneously in
623  10 6 and 450  10 6, respectively, the biggest is cement. Such an effect can be seen at early age of 3 days or
almost three times the smallest. even 1 day of hydration of cement. According to XRD, TG-
According to creep rate, three groups of concrete tested DSC and SEM analyses on hydrates of cement, both amount
were all subject to a faster development of creep at early of AFt crystal hydrates and that of C-S-H gel hydrates in
ages than at late ages, and the age of 60 days was the cement paste blended with ultrafine GGBS and SF were
turning point. For the individual concrete, the value of greater than their counterparts in cement paste blended with
creep rate was different. Before 60 days, Concrete A was only ultrafine GGBS or SF. At the same time, the amount of
much greater than B and C, and C was the lowest. After CH crystal hydrates in the former paste was less than that in
60 days, the creep rates of A, B and C became similar the latter paste [5,6].
while Concrete B and C can be thought to have equal As a result of tiny particles, ultrafine GGBS and SF
creep rate. can fill the small pores and voids which are harmful
to structure and macroperformance of concrete. This
3.3. Drying shrinkage effect is physical and can be called the effect of
microsized particles.
The results of drying shrinkage test of three groups of In summary, the addition of ultrafine GGBS and SF in
concrete are shown in Fig. 2. concrete will greatly strengthen the structure and reduce the
As shown in Fig. 2, at early test ages the difference creep and drying shrinkage of concrete.
between amounts of drying shrinkage of Concrete A, B and As well known to all, creep and drying shrinkage of
C was small. After 28 days, Concrete A obtained substan- concrete are determined by many factors, such as proper-
tially greater amount of drying shrinkage than Concrete B ties and amount of hardened cement paste, type and
and C, while the latter two always had similar shrinkage amount of aggregate, curing system and testing method.
amount. At age of 180 days, the amount of shrinkage for In this study, only one factor, type of binder, varies for
Concrete A, B and C was 220  10 6, 96  10 6 and three groups of concrete. The variation of binders leads to
127  10 6, respectively. During the whole test period, different properties of hardened cement paste for three
Concrete B always acquired the lowest shrinkage strain, groups of concrete. As mentioned above, ultrafine GGBS
which is different from the creep development where Con-
crete C was the smallest. As for the shrinkage rate, before
test age of 28 days, Concrete A got the highest one. After
this age, the shrinkage rate for the three groups of concrete
became close gradually. However, Concrete A still had the
highest rate.

4. Discussions on roles of ultrafine GGBS and SF in HPC

GGBS and SF are effective supplementary binding

materials to be used for preparation of HPC [1 –4]. GGBS
has similar chemical compositions to those of portland Fig. 2. Results of drying shrinkage test of concrete.
1206 J. Li, Y. Yao / Cement and Concrete Research 31 (2001) 1203–1206

and SF will greatly increase the amount of AFt hydrates the structure of concrete. That may be the mechanism of
and C-S-H gel hydrates and the density of hardened reducing effect of ultrafine GGBS and SF on creep and
cement paste, which make concrete stronger and more drying shrinkage of concrete.
resistant to deformation caused by force applied on it.
On the same conditions of test (e.g., same load applied on
specimens), the amount of creep and drying shrinkage of Acknowledgments
concrete will decrease greatly.
This research is sponsored by the former State Planning
Commission of China. The authors also want to express
thanks to State Supervision and Inspection Centre for
5. Conclusions
Quality of Civil Engineering of China for its cooperation.
From the above experimental results, the following
conclusions were drawn: References

HPC of high mechanical strength and good workability
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important to ensure the high performance of concrete. ways Publishing House, Beijing, 1999.

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Materials Industry Publishing House, Beijing, 1992.
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[5] L. Jianyong, T. Pei, Effects of slag and silica fume on the mechanical
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creep rate. pp. 833 – 837.

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[7] M.W. Grutezk, D.M. Roy, D. Wolfe-Confer, Mechanism of hydration of
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