On the Under-Pressure in the Pore Water of Sealed High Performance Concrete, HPC

This article outlines an experimental and numerical study on the estimation of under-pressure in the pore water of HPC. For this purpose 96 sealed cylinders made of 8 HPCs with w/c varying between 0.25 and 0.38, based on low-alkali Portland Cement, were manufactured. Five or ten per cent silica fume was used in the HPCs as calculated on the basis of the cement content. Basic creep was studied on two thirds of the cylinders and autogenous shrinkage on the rest. The measurement was done from 0.01 s until 3 years’ age. Parallel studies of hydration, strength and internal relative humidity, RH, were performed on 450 cubes manufactured from the same batches that were used for the cylinders. The results indicated high influence of w/c, age and silica fume on the under-pressure in the pore water of HPC.