780 Vol.26 No.4 CHANG Xu et al: Expansive Behaviors of Self-stressing Concrete under ...

DOI 10.1007/s11595-011-0310-5

Expansive Behaviors of Self-stressing Concrete

under Different Restraining Conditions

CHANG Xu 1, HUANG Chengkui 2, ZHANG Peng3

(1.College of Civil Engineering, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo, 454000, China;2.The State Key Lab of Coastal and
Offshore Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China; 3.School of Water Conservancy and Environmental
Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China)

Abstract: The expansive behaviors of the expensive concrete under different restraining conditions were
systemically studied. The experimental results indicate that expansive deformation obviously increases before
10 days and tends to be constant after 25 days regardless of the restraining conditions. The mixture ratio of
expansive cement and restraining conditions are the main factors affecting expansive deformation. Self-stress
can be obtained when the expansive deformation is restrained. The higher self-stress could be obtained when
the expensive concrete is restrained by steel tube. For specimens under steel tube restraining, the wall thickness
and the length of the steel tube have important influence on self-stress. Both the radial self-stress and axial self-
stress in concrete core increase when wall thickness or length of the steel tube increases.
Key words: self-stress; expansive concrete; restraining condition

1 Introduction stressing concrete is helpful to improve the bearing

It is well known that shrinkage of the concrete
is an important phenomenon. The shrinkage might
not only result in serious structural defects but also
deteriorate the durability of the concrete. Expansive
concrete is proven to be one of the most effective ways
of overcoming this shortcoming. Expensive concrete
has the special functions in building engineering and
become more popular in recent decades [1-6] . Two
basic classes for expansive concrete are shrinkage
compensating-concrete and self-stressing concrete.
The main difference between them is the magnitude
of expansion defromation. For most cases, expensive
concrete is used to compensate the shrinkage of the
concrete. If a large amount of expensive component is
provided and the expensive concrete is restrained by
steel, steel tube or other reinforcements, compressive
stress is sufficient to resist tensile stresses from external
loads. In this case, the concrete member is pre-stressed
by chemical stress and the concrete is call self-stressing
concrete [7]. Experimental studies have indicated self-
capacity of concrete members [8-11]. However, the basic
deformation behaviors are not clear. In order to give a
further understanding of the basic deformation of self-
stressing concrete, the expensive behaviors under the
free-expansion, the steel bar restraining and steel tube
restraining conditions are systemically studied in this
paper.
2 Experimental
Sulfoaluminate-type expansive cement was used.
Its chemical composition is shown in Table 1. In all
the concrete mixed, the fine aggregate was silica-based
sand and the coarse aggregate was granite of 10mm.
All the concrete mixes proportions are shown in Table
2. In an attempt to obtain different self-stress level,
the consumption of expansive cement in the concrete
mix is variational. In alphabetical order a, b and c,
the consumption of expansive cement in the mixes is
increasing.

©Wuhan University of Technology and SpringerVerlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011

(Received: June 20, 2010; Accepted: Aug. 13, 2010 )
CHANG Xu (常旭): Assoc. Prof.; Ph D; E-mail: changxu815@163.
com;
Funded by the NSFC (No.50578027), the Key Subject Foundation Three different restraining conditions, free
of Henan Province (No.504906) and the Doctor Foundation of Henan expansion, uniaxial restraining and triaxial restraining,
Polytechnic University (No.B2009-2) are used. As shown in Fig.1, for the free expansion
 Journal of Wuhan University of Technology-Mater. Sci. Ed.
specimens (series ’Z’), no steel bars neither other
reinforcements were used. For the specimens under
steel bar restraining (series ’D’), two square end steel
plates were weld on each end of the steel bar with a
diameter of 10mm, as shown in Fig.2. Both the free
expansion specimens and the specimens under steel
bar restraining have the same dimensions of 100 mm×
100 mm×500 mm.
For the specimens under steel tube restraining,
the steel tubes with different wall thickness and length
are used. In accordance with the wall thickness of steel
tubes, series ‘S’ with 9 specimens are divided into three
groups of three specimens each. These three specimens
in each group have same wall thickness and length of
steel tube but different concrete mixes. Five specimens
in Series ‘L’ have the same concrete mixes and wall
Aug. 2011 781
thickness of steel tubes but different specimen length.
For the free expansion and steel bar restraining
specimens, the deformation behaviors are measured
by micrometer gauges, as shown in Fig.3. For the each
specimen under steel tube restraining, eight strain
gauges are used to observe the expansive behaviors
during the hardening process, as shown in Fig.4.
All specimens are cured in same condition and after
24-hour age expansive behavior are measured.
The details about these specimens are summarized
in Table 3.