Coefficient of Thermal Expansion of Concrete Mixes in Hawaii: Determination and Implications for Concrete Pavement Design
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 27, Issue 5
Abstract
The coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of portland cement concrete (PCC) is a significant factor affecting the performance of concrete pavements. It is also required as a direct input in the mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide (MEPDG). The primary objective of this study was to determine CTE values of PCC mixes used in Hawaiian pavements. A secondary objective was to study the effect of curing time on the CTE. To achieve these objectives, 45 concrete specimens were prepared on-site at three Hawaiian concrete companies using local basaltic aggregates. For each site, 15 replicate test specimens (five sets of three) were cured in a 100% humidity room for 3, 7, 14, 28, and 56 days before determining their CTEs following AASHTO T 336. It was found that CTE values vary significantly with curing time. It was also observed that the CTEs at 28 days computed in this study, ranging from to ( to ), differ significantly from the value recommended in the MEPDG manual of practice for concrete specimens with basaltic rock as a constituent (, ), which can lead to designs with overestimated performance. The variation caused by curing time is similar in magnitude to the variation caused by the use of different mixes for a given curing time. Thus, the study results support the need to establish a standard curing time when determining an appropriate CTE for design. Furthermore, use of a nonrepresentative default value can have a higher effect than that produced by differences between mixes or curing times, which highlights the importance of performing research to establish local CTE values. Based on the results, it is recommended to use the CTE obtained after 28 days of curing for design. Possible implications of the results obtained in this study are illustrated with a particular jointed plain concrete pavement (JPCP) design with the MEPDG.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The financial support of the State of Hawaii Department of Transportation in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration is greatly appreciated and acknowledged. The contents of this paper reflect the view of the authors, who are responsible for the facts and accuracy of the data presented.
This study was also made possible by the generous donation of material by the following companies: (1) Island Ready Mix (Oahu), (2) Hawaiian Cement (Oahu), and (3) West Hawaii Concrete (Hawaii/Big Island). The authors would also like to thank Mr. Jayanth Kumar Rayappedi Kumar for his help in collecting samples and laboratory work.
References
AASHTO. (1993). Guide for design of pavement structures, Washington, DC.
AASHTO. (2008). Mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide—A manual of practice, Interim Ed., Washington, DC.
Crawford, G., Gudimettla, J., and Tanesi, J. (2010). “Interlaboratory study on measuring coefficient of thermal expansion of concrete.”, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 58–65.
FORTA Corporation. (2014). “FORTA for concrete.” 〈http://www.forta-ferro.com/products/macrofibers/forta-ferro/〉 (Mar. 27, 2014).
Havel, S. A. (2011). “Coefficient of thermal expansion of concrete mixes in Hawaii: Determination and implications for concrete pavement design.” M.S. thesis, Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu.
Huang, Y. (2001). Pavement analysis and design, 2nd Ed., Pearson/Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Jahangirnejad, S. (2009). “Evaluation of portland cement concrete coefficient of thermal expansion test protocol and the impact of CTE on performance of jointed concrete pavements.” Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State Univ, East Lansing, MI.
Jahangirnejad, S., Buch, N., and Kravchenko, A. (2009). “Evaluation of coefficient of thermal expansion test protocol and its impact on jointed concrete pavement performance.” ACI Mater. J., 106(1), 64–71.
Kosmatka, S. H., Kerhoff, B., MacLeod, N., and McGrath, R. J. (2002). Design and control of concrete mixtures. EB101, 7th Ed., Cement Association of Canada, Ottawa, Canada.
Mallela, J., Abbas, A., Harman, T., Rao, C., Liu, R., and Darter, M. (2005). “Measurement and significance of the coefficient of thermal expansion of concrete in rigid pavement design.”, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 38–46.
Mindess, S., Young, J., and Darwin, D. (2003). Concrete, 2nd Ed., Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP). (2004). “Guide for mechanistic-empirical design of new and rehabilitated pavement structures.” NCHRP Project 1-37A, Final Rep., Part 2, ERES Consultants Divisions, Applied Research Associates, Champaign, IL.
LabView SignalExpress for Windows [Computer software]. National Instruments.
Navidi, W. (2006). Statistics for engineers and scientists, McGraw Hill Higher Education, New York.
Neville, A. (1996). Properties of concrete, Wiley, New York.
Rudeloffand Sieglerschmidt (1913). Deutscher Ausschuss f. Eisenbeton. 23.
Shushkewich, K., and Robertson, I. (1998). “Instrumentation of the North Halawa Valley Viaduct, Oahu, Hawaii.” Progress Rep. Prepared for the Hawaii Dept. of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, Univ. of Hawaii., Honolulu.
Tanesi, J., Crawford, G., Nicolaescu, M., Meininger, R., and Gudimettla, J. (2010). “New AASHTO T336-09 coefficient of thermal expansion test method how will it affect you?”, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 52–57.
Tanesi, J. K., Abbas, A., and Meininger, R. (2007). “Effect of coefficient of thermal expansion test variability on concrete pavement performance as predicted by mechanistic-emperical pavement design guide.”, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 40–44.
Tran, N., Hall, K., and James, M. (2008). “Coefficient of thermal expansion of concrete materials, characterization to support implementation of the mechanistic–empirical pavement design guide.”, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 51–56.
Wittmann, F., and Lukas, J. (1974). “Experimental study of thermal expansion of hardened cement paste.” Mater. Struct., 7(4), 247–252.
Yeon, J. H., Choi, S., and Won, M. C. (2009). “Effect of relative humidity on coefficient of thermal expansion of hardened cement paste and concrete.”, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 83–91.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 4, 2013
Accepted: May 2, 2014
Published online: Aug 5, 2014
Discussion open until: Jan 5, 2015
Published in print: May 1, 2015
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.