The Effect of Shrinkage Reducing Admixture on the Behavior of Concrete used in Concrete Pavements

Concrete pavements are widely used by pavement engineers due to their advantages over flexible pavements such as long lifetime, good performance and durability, etc. However, concrete pavements represent some drawbacks such as shrinkage that increases the tensile stress in concrete, which may lead to cracking, warping, etc. Drying shrinkage is the most important type of shrinkage in concrete pavements. To prevent or reduce the amount of cracking, shrinkage reducing admixture (SRA) can be used. This admixture controls shrinkage by reducing water surface tensile in capillary tubes. In this study, the effect of shrinkage reducing admixture on the behavior of concrete used in concrete pavements was investigated. Slump, compressive strength, third-point flexural strength, electrical resistance, skid resistance, free shrinkage, and restrained shrinkage by ring test were performed. Two water-cement ratios of 0.35 & 0.4 were used for mix design and the percentage of shrinkage reducing admixture used in mixtures was 2% by weight of cement. The results showed that the use of SRA had a negligible effect on workability. Also, the use of SRA caused about a 10% reduction in compressive and flexural strength and electrical resistance. Furthermore, a reduction of 10% and 20% was observed in free and restrained shrinkages, respectively, followed by a 40% reduction in crack width and more than one-week delay in the occurrence of the first crack. Finally, no certain relationship was observed between the usage of SRA and variations of the skid resistance of concrete pavements.