Mitigation of early age cracking of concrete for bridge decks

Wilson, William Oliver

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/44112 Copy

Description

Title

Mitigation of early age cracking of concrete for bridge decks

Author(s)

Wilson, William Oliver

Issue Date

2013-05-24T21:51:04Z

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Lange, David A.

Department of Study

Civil & Environmental Eng

Discipline

Civil Engineering

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.S.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

• Concrete
• Cement
• Lightweight aggregate
• Shrinkage reducing admixture
• Optimized gradation
• Bridge deck
• Internal curing
• Uni-axial creep-shrinkage test
• Restrained shrinkage testing machine
• Early age cracking
• Deterioration
• Shrinkage
• Creep

Abstract

In order to reduce reconstruction time and costs in order to better serve the general public a need has arisen for longer service life when considering concrete bridge decks for highway applications. Service life of concrete bridge decks is often cut short indirectly, due to deterioration mechanisms that exist at early ages of the concrete. Early age deterioration mechanisms such as early age cracking cause the reinforcing steel rebar to be exposed prematurely to the elements of the environment, which causes for lower service life of the bridge deck through corrosion of the reinforcing steel in the bridge deck. In harsh environments, such as the Midwestern United States, the premature exposure can cause devastating effects to service life. In order to prevent early deterioration, it is imperative to examine early age hardened properties of the concrete and fresh properties of the concrete in order to produce the best defect-free bridge deck available which will promote long service life. In order to examine early age hardened properties and fresh properties of concrete to be used for bridge decks on the Illinois Tollway, laboratory testing was performed by CTL Group and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Through extensive laboratory testing, results indicate that many mitigation strategies are able to improve early age cracking in concrete for bridge decks. Through early age mitigation it is possible to decrease the probability of early age deterioration in concrete bridge decks and promote service life.

Graduation Semester

2013-05

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/44112

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2013 William Wilson

Owning Collections