Evaluation of the ultimate drying shrinkage of cement-based mortars with poroelastic models

Abstract

In this study, the ultimate drying shrinkage of three different cement-based mortars, with and without supplementary cementitious materials, was investigated. Experimental results were compared to the predicted ultimate shrinkage values obtained by three different poroelastic approaches. The different poroelastic models predict similar ultimate shrinkage as a function of the relative humidity especially in the higher range (above about 50 % RH). The experimentally-measured ultimate drying shrinkage is predicted reasonably well by the different models, with the highest deviations observed for the slag-containing mortars. The most important parameters that influence the predictions are discussed and their effect is quantified. The uncertainty of the shrinkage predictions resulting from error propagation of the input parameters is estimated using a parametric bootstrap technique.