EFFECT OF DIFFERENT CURING REGIMES ON CAPILLARITY OF CONCRETE INCORPORATING LOCAL MATERIALS

Abstract

This paper reports an experimental study to investigate the effect of different curing regimes on the capillary water absorption (CWA) characteristics of concrete produced with locally available materials. Mechanical (compressive strength) and nondestructive test (ultrasonic pulse velocity) of concrete were also investigated. The engineering properties were conducted on concrete under three different curing regimes at different curing times of 2, 7 and 28 days. The three different curing conditions were water curing, dry curing and gunny-covered curing. According to the results obtained concrete under water curing condition demonstrated lower capillary water absorption (CWA) at 2 and 7 days ages and concrete under gunny-covered condition demonstrated lower CWA at 28 days age compared with the other curing conditions. It is interesting to see that the compressive strength (38 MPa) of concrete was almost the same at 28 days age under gunny-covered and water curing conditions.