Effects of aggregate size and angularity on alkali–silica reaction

The effects of reactive aggregate size and aggregate angularity on alkali–silica reaction (ASR) were studied. An all-in natural reactive aggregate was used. The coarse aggregate particles were crushed to obtain crushed fine particles. The angularity of the aggregate was determined using ASTM C1252 and EN 933-6 methods. ASTM C1260 accelerated mortar bar test was conducted to compare the ASR expansion caused by various aggregate size fractions. The effect of the size of the particles on ASR expansion was studied by replacing each size fraction of the non-reactive aggregate with the reactive aggregate of the same size. In spite of similarity of the chemical and mineralogical compositions, the crushed aggregate caused higher ASR expansion than the natural aggregate in all size fractions. The summation of the expansions of individual reactive size fractions of both aggregates was found to be higher than that of corresponding control mixtures.