Creep and drying shrinkage characteristics of concrete produced with coarse recycled concrete aggregate

Laboratory tests are performed to investigate the effects of a new method of mixture proportioning on the creep and shrinkage characteristics of concrete made with recycled concrete aggregate (RCA). In this method, RCA is treated as a two component composite material consisting of residual mortar and natural aggregate; accordingly, when proportioning the concrete mixture, the relative amount and properties of each component are individually considered. The test variables include the mixture proportioning method, and the aggregate type. The results show that the amounts of creep and shrinkage in concretes made with coarse RCA, and proportioned by the new method, are comparable to, or even lower than, those in similar concretes made entirely with natural aggregates. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that by applying the proposed “residual mortar factor” to the existing ACI and CEB methods for calculating creep or shrinkage of conventional concrete, these methods could be also applied to predict the creep and shrinkage of RCA-concrete.

► Creep and shrinkage of RCA-concrete are functions of residual mortar content in RCA.
► Conventional RCA-concrete mix design method leads to excessive mortar content.
► Conventional RCA-concrete mix design method leads to high creep and shrinkage.
► New RCA-concrete mix design method is proposed to reduce creep and shrinkage.
► Tests show that new RCA-concrete mix design method reduces creep and shrinkage.