Drying shrinkage cracking of concrete using dune sand and crushed sand

Abstract

In this study, experimental results are presented to evaluate the properties of drying shrinkage cracking of concrete using dune sand (DS) and crushed sand (CS) as fine aggregate (FA). Concrete mixtures were made to meet the target workability with the variation of DS to FA ratio (DS/FA ratio) and water content.The results showed that the highest compressive strength and the highest tensile strength were shown in concrete mixtures of DS/FA ratio 20% and the strength decreased with the increase of DS/FA ratio when DS/FA ratio was over 20%. The lower water content led to higher net time-to-cracking. Also, the increase of DS led to decrease of CS and the increase of coarse aggregate (CA) in the mixture and this change led to decrease of the net time-to-cracking. It indicates that aggregate volume fraction could affect the drying shrinkage cracking under same total aggregate volume. Based on the changes of aggregate volume and the net time-to-cracking in this study, the restraint factor of CS could be calculated to minimum 54% of the restraint factor of CA and the restraint factor of DS could be less than that of CS.