Study on the Effect of Recycled Coarse Aggregate on the Shrinkage Performance of Green Recycled Concrete

Shrinkage property is a significant indicator of the durability of concrete, and the shrinkage of green recycled concrete is particularly problematic. In this paper, construction waste was crushed and screened to generate simple-crushed recycled coarse aggregate (SCRCA). The SCRCA was then subjected to particle shaping to create primary particle-shaped recycled coarse aggregate (PPRCA). On this basis, the PPRCA was particle-shaped again to obtain the secondary particle-shaped recycled coarse aggregate (SPRCA). Under conditions where the dosage of cementitious material is 300 kg/m3 and the sand rate is 38%, a new high-belite sulphoaluminate cement (HBSAC) with low carbon emission and superior efficiency was used as the basic cementitious material. Taking the quality of recycled coarse aggregate (SCRCA, PPRCA, and SPRCA) and the replacement ratio (25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%) as the influencing factors to prepare the green recycled concrete, the workability and shrinkage property of the prepared concrete were analyzed. The results show that the water consumption of green recycled concrete decreases as the quality of the recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) increases and the replacement ratio decreases, provided that the green recycled concrete achieves the same workability. With the improvement of RCA quality and the decrease of replacement ratio, the shrinkage of recycled concrete decreases. The shrinkage performance of green recycled concrete configured with the SPRCA completely replacing the natural coarse aggregate (NCA) is basically the same as that of the natural aggregate concrete (NAC).

Mechanical Performance and Microstructure of Ultra-High-Performance Concrete Modified by Calcium Sulfoaluminate Cement

High autogenous shrinkage property is one of the disadvantages of ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC), which may induce early age cracking and threaten the safety of concrete structure. In the present study, different dosages of calcium sulfoaluminate (CSA) cement were added in UHPC as an effective expansive binder. Hydration mechanism, autogenous shrinkage property, and compressive strength of UHPC were carried out to investigate the effect of CSA addition on the mechanical properties of UHPC. Scanning electron microscopy was also employed to characterize the intrinsic microstructural reasons relating to the changes in macroproperties. Based on the XRD diagram, increasing formation of ettringite and Ca(OH)2 can be found with increasing CSA content up to 15%. In the heat flow results of UHPC with 10% CSA addition, the maximum heat release increases to 2.6 mW/g, which is 8.3% higher than the reference UHPC, suggesting a higher degree of hydration with CSA addition. The results in autogenous shrinkage show that CSA expansion agent plays a significantly beneficial role in improving the autogenous shrinkage of UHPC. The corresponding autogenous shrinkage of UHPC is −59.66 μ ε , −131.11 μ ε , and −182.31 μ ε , respectively, at 7 d with 5%, 10%, and 15% addition, which is 108%, 117%, and 123% reduction compared to the reference specimen without CSA. In terms of compressive strength, UHPC with 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% CSA addition has 10.5%, 17.4%, 30.2%, and 22.1% higher compressive strength than that for the reference UHPC at 28 d. Microstructural study shows that there is an extremely dense microstructure in both the bulk matrix and interfacial transition zone of UHPC with 10% CSA addition, which can be attributed to the higher autogenous shrinkage property and can therefore result in higher mechanical performance.

Crack Resistance and Mechanical Properties of Polyvinyl Alcohol Fiber-Reinforced Cement-Stabilized Macadam Base

A series of tests were carried out to evaluate crack resistance and mechanical properties of polyvinyl alcohol fiber-reinforced cement-stabilized macadam, which is widely used as pavement base or subbase composite material. Three series of cement-stabilized macadam mixtures with cement content of 3.2%, 3.6%, and 4.0% were prepared by incorporating four various contents (0, 0.6, 0.9, and 1.2 kg/m3) and lengths (12, 18, 24, and 30 mm) of polyvinyl alcohol fiber. The optimum polyvinyl alcohol fiber content, fiber length, and cement content were determined based on the mechanical properties of cement-stabilized macadam mixtures. Then, unconfined compressive strength test, compressive resilience modulus test, splitting strength test, flexural tensile strength test, drying shrinkage test, and temperature shrinkage test were carried out in this study. The results show that polyvinyl alcohol fiber-reinforced cement-stabilized prepared by optimum proportions (cement 3.6%, fiber content 0.9 kg/m3, and fiber length 24 mm) has good crack resistance. The incorporation of polyvinyl alcohol fiber can effectively improve compressive strength and splitting strength, while its effect on CRM of cement-stabilized macadam is not remarkable. The anti-dry-shrinkage property and anti-temperature-shrinkage property of the specimens are also drastically improved due to the reinforcement effect of polyvinyl alcohol fiber. Moreover, the crack resistance index is proposed to evaluate the crack resistance of materials. The crack resistance of PVA fiber-reinforced cement-stabilized macadam prepared by optimum proportions is improved by 44.4%. Consequently, the mechanical properties and crack resistance of cement-stabilized macadam are obviously improved by adding polyvinyl alcohol fiber.

Different Dependence of Tear Strength on Film Orientation of LLDPE Made with Different Co-Monomer

Crystal orientations, tear strength and shrinkage of Linear Low-Density PolyEthylene (LLDPE) films made with different processes (compressed, cast and blown) were investigated. The films were made with three different LLDPE resins, respectively, which have similar density and molecular weight but are made with different comonomers (1-butene, 1-hexene and 1-octene), in order to investigate if tear strength in Machine Direction (MD) of the LLDPE films made with different comonomer has similar dependence on crystal orientation. Our study indicates that the films made of 1-hexene and 1-octene based LLDPE resins have significantly higher intrinsic tear strength and less decrease in MD tear strength for a given film orientation. That is, for a given orientation in MD, the MD tear drops dramatically for films made with butene-based resin but much less decrease for the films made with hexene and octene-based resins. The shrinkage property at high temperature shows a good correlation with crystal orientation and the fraction of the crystals melted at this temperature.

Effect of additives on shrinkage property of unsaturated polyester and mechanical properties of artificial stone

Artificial stone is composite of unsaturated polyester and calcium carbonate that is mostly synthesized. This study aimed to investigate the effect of additives on shrinkage property of Unsaturated Polyester (UP) and mechanical properties of artificial stone such as flexural strength, impact strength, and hardness. In this paper, we tested effect of additives such as anhydride maleic (AM), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), methyl methacrylate (MMA) and polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) with varying concentrations from 1 – 10 phr under condition process includes 2 phr BPO, 1100C cured temperature and 20 mins cured time

Study on performance of old composite pavement reclaimed material in cement stabilized macadam base

For the old composite pavement, there are two regeneration methods: the overall recycling asphalt pavement and the cement concrete pavement and the Stratified recovery. C-B-3 gradation and cement content of 5% were used. The total content of recycled aggregate is 0, 30%, 50%, 70% and 100% and the proportion of RA and RAP is about 1:2. Through compaction test， unconfined compressive strength test and dry shrinkage test, studying the feasibility of recycling composite pavement to cement stabilized macadam base. The results show that the strength of recycled cement stabilized macadam is generally higher than that of ordinary cement stabilized macadam. The strength of regenerated cement stabilized macadam can meet the strength requirements under most traffic volume of the highways in the standard. The gradation of the mixture by stratified recovery is more uniform and the quality of the mixture can be better controlled. The addition of NA has a negative effect on the dry shrinkage properties of recycled cement stabilized macadam. However, mixing RAP into recycled cement stabilized macadam can reduce the sensitivity of materials to water and enhance the dry shrinkage property of materials.