Abstract
The influence of sand particles, aging, and water–cement (w/c) ratio on the viscoelastic relaxation modulus of cement paste and mortars was measured at early ages (1–28 days). Furthermore, the relaxation modulus obtained approximating the strain state as constant or obtained considering the real strain history observed during testing were compared; significant error was encountered when a constant strain was assumed. In contrast, little error was introduced when aging during the relaxation experiments was neglected, which is likely due to the relatively short duration of the experiments and the nonconstant strain history that led to rapid stress decay. In contrast to conventional wisdom, lower w/c samples loaded at very early ages exhibited similar relaxation to higher w/c samples; however, at later ages, lower w/c materials exhibit lower relaxation rate. For samples loaded at later ages, the similarity between the shape of the relaxation curves for samples containing differing sand content and w/c suggests a method to simply quantify the effects by shifting the spring constants in a Kelvin–Voigt or Maxwell-type model.
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Data Availability Statement
All data that support the findings of this study (measured stress and strain data) are available in an online repository: Tavares, C. (2020). Replication Data for: “Effect of Strain History and Mixture Proportions on Early Age Cement Paste and Mortar Stress Relaxation,” Texas Data Repository Dataverse. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18738/T8/ECKBMK.
Acknowledgments
Cesario Tavares was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Federal Award ID No. 1562123 for the Award title “Collaborative Research: Elucidating the Physical Origins of Creep in Cementitious Materials Towards Improved Prediction and Prescription of Creep-Resistant Binders.” All opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations are those from the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Cesario Tavares executed the experimental tests, analyzed the data, and wrote this manuscript. Dr. Grasley contributed through supervising, planning, discussing the results, and finalizing the manuscript. The authors acknowledge the valuable contributions from Xijun Shi on the Young’s modulus experimental work as well as Juan Pablo Idrovo and Brian Feng on the stress relaxation experiments performed at the Center for Infrastructure Renewal.
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Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 33 • Issue 9 • September 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 30, 2020
Accepted: Jan 4, 2021
Published online: Jun 29, 2021
Published in print: Sep 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Nov 29, 2021
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