Study on properties of self-curing concrete using polyethylene glycol

Abstract

Concrete is an essential engineering material used in most civil engineering structures because of its economic use, good durability, good compressive strength, and ease to manufacture at a site. Curing of concrete is an important activity to maintain the satisfactory moisture content in concrete and to develop desired properties. The impact of improper curing is commonly related to the strength and durability of concrete. As a result, the improperly cured concrete structure exhibits the early crack of buildings, which results in a strength loss. Self-curing concrete is under the category of special concrete that mitigates insufficient curing. The research aims to study the properties of self-curing concrete using polyethylene glycol and for this research PEG-400 was selected as internal curing agent. An experimental laboratory test was implemented for C-25 grade of concrete with a mix ratio of 1:2.08:2.58 using water to cement ratio of 0.5. In this study, the percentage of PEG-400 was used from 0% to 2.0% by weight of cement added in to mixing water. Four different groups, with a total of 48 cube samples, were casted with a cube size of 15cm*15cm*15cm. The cubes were cured using two curing methods with testing age of 3rd, 7th, 14th, and 28th days of curing. A workability slump test was conducted for fresh concrete, and compressive strength and density test for hardened concrete was carried out. The fresh concrete property test result shows, increasing the percentage of PEG-400 increases slump values. As a result, there is a very strong linear relationship between the workability slump and the percentage of PEG-400. The compressive strength test result for the 28th day of curing was 28.1433MPa, 31.2633MPa, 28.1633MPa and 26.0467MPa for 0%, 1%, 1.5% and 2% of PEG-400 respectively. The optimum dosage of PEG-400 for maximum compressive strength was observed at 1.0% of PEG-400. The density of the concrete samples analyzed fell within the range of normal weight concrete density, and the relationship between compressive strength and density was good. As the findings, in the production of self-curing concrete polyethylene glycol is a good selfcuring agent to have better compressive strength than conventionally cured concrete. So, it is recommended to use it as a self-curing agent in a proper way