Influence of Mineral Admixtures on Crack Resistance of High Strength Concrete

Abstract

As high strength concrete (HSC) is widely used in construction, more and more attention has been paid to crack resistance of it. In order to improve crack resistance of HSC, we study the influence of mineral admixtures (ground slag, silica fume and fly ash) on brittleness and characteristic length as crack resistance’ indexes. Testing researches shows, without admixture, crack resistance of HSC is the lowest; when one of the three mineral admixtures added, crack resistance increases dramatically; when two of the three mineral admixtures are added in the concrete, crack resistance increases a little more and it does not change very much no matter which two are mixed; crack resistance comes out the highest when the three mineral admixtures are added in concrete. Mechanism analysis shows, Adding fine and high active ground slag, silica fume and fly ash into concrete can greatly improve microstructure of transition zone, decrease Ca(OH)2, ettringite and porosity in concrete, increase C-S-H gel and greatly reduce the original micro-cracks in the transition zone.