A New Method for Assessment of Curing Effectiveness

Ensuring sufficient water availability in hydrating concrete is of great importance for quality concrete relative to both short-term and long- term performance of concrete pavement. Excessive early-age evaporation from the concrete pavement surface can causes high porosity, and low strength at the top part of concrete with a deeper moisture gradient, which ultimately leads to a greater potential of surface crazing and warping induced delamination. Application of liquid curing compounds on newly built concrete pavement surfaces has been widely used to minimize evaporation. However, the availability of reliable test method to assess the efficacy of a curing compound to minimize the evaporation is still lacking. Therefore, advancements are needed to facilitate the evaluation of curing effectiveness especially under field conditions. This paper presents a laboratory-based procedure, which has the potential for application in the field, of qualifying the effectiveness of a curing compound membrane relative to the factors that control it. The curing monitor system (CMS), a device capable of accurately recording relative humidity (RH) and temperature readings at three critical locations along with wind speed and solar radiation is used as a potential test procedure to assess the efficacy of curing compound. The calculated curing parameters (e.g., curing effective thickness or curing index) associated with the test procedure are useful to rank the curing compound relative to lab conditions. From the limited field studies, it has been observed that the test procedure has a great potential to evaluate the curing effectiveness under field conditions.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Ye, Dan
  • Mukhopadhyay, Anal Kanti
  • Zollinger, Dan G
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2007-1-21 to 2007-1-25
• Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 16p
• Monograph Title: TRB 86th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers CD-ROM

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Concrete pavements; Curing agents; Curing and setting agents; Field tests; Laboratory tests; Moisture content; Solar radiation; Water
• Uncontrolled Terms: Effectiveness; Relative humidity; Surface cracking
• Subject Areas: Highways; Materials; I32: Concrete;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01045148
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 07-2768
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Feb 8 2007 7:28PM