Abstract
The aim of this paper was to study how the early-age self-shrinkage behavior of cement paste is affected by the addition of the waste paper fibers under sealed conditions. Although the primary focus was to determine whether the waste paper fibers are suitable to mitigate self-shrinkage as an internal curing agent under different adding ways, evaluating their strength, pore structure, and hydration properties provided further insight into the self-cured behavior of cement paste. Under the wet mixing condition, the waste paper fibers could mitigate the self-shrinkage of cement paste and, at additions of 0.2% by mass of cement, the waste paper fibers were found to show significant self-shrinkage cracking control while providing some internal curing. In addition, the self-curing efficiency results were analyzed based on the strength and the self-shrinkage behaviors of cement paste. Results indicated that, under a low water cement ratio, an optimal dosage and adding ways of the waste paper fibers could enhance the self-curing efficiency of cement paste.
Highlights
Because of the need of long spans, towering, and overloading and harsh conditions in modern engineering, the highperformance concrete (HPC) has been widely used in the infrastructure, such as bridges, high-rise buildings, port, and underground projects, due to the high strength and high performance [1, 2]
Self-desiccation leading to selfshrinkage causes the early cracks of concrete, which have been recognized to be a major shortcoming of HPC [3–5]
From σC/σF, we found that σC/σF of sample B2 cured within 28 days was lower than those of B0 and B5, which showed that the Waste paper fibers (WPFs) could improve the toughness of cement paste, but the degree of improvement was about the adding ways of WPFs
Summary
Because of the need of long spans, towering, and overloading and harsh conditions in modern engineering, the highperformance concrete (HPC) has been widely used in the infrastructure, such as bridges, high-rise buildings, port, and underground projects, due to the high strength and high performance [1, 2]. Self-desiccation leading to selfshrinkage causes the early cracks of concrete, which have been recognized to be a major shortcoming of HPC [3–5]. Because of a low water-binder ratio of HPC, a large amount of unhydrated cement within concrete can attract water from the capillary and begin to hydrate. With the early hardening of concrete, the shrinkage deformation is greater than the ultimate stretching deformation, which always causes the cracking and decreases the permeability and the carbonation resistance of concrete. The self-desiccation shrinkage of concrete is closely related to the drop of its internal relative humidity; this is confirmed in the previous studies [6–8]. In order to effectively control and improve the self-shrinkage of concrete, an absorbent polymer as a self-curing agent is developed to improve the hydration degree of concrete and reduce the compressive stress and the sensitivity to cracking [9–11]
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