The effects of water/binder ratio (w/b) on the toughness behavior, compressive strength and flexural strength of engineered cementitious composites (ECC) were investigated. The w/b ratios of 0.25, 0.31, 0.33 and 0.37 were selected and the specimens were tested at the ages of 7 d and 28 d. The experimental results showed that there was a corresponding increase in first cracking strength, modulus of rupture, compressive strength and flexural strength with the decrease of w/b. Within the w/b range of 0.25-0.37, higher w/b was found to have improved effects on deflection, strain hardening index and toughness index of ECC. In the permission of meeting the requirement of compressive strength grade, selecting higher w/b in mix design will help to obtain robust ECC.
The effects of several mineral admixtures such as silica fume,granulated ground blast furnace slag and fly ash at different replacement ratio instead of Portland cement on the corrosion of steel reinforced concrete were investigated.By measuring the rebar anode polarization curve,permeability of concrete,mass loss of steel rebar and the amount of chloride ions and hydroxide in mortar,the corrosion resistance of steel embedded in fresh mortar incorporated of salt and different mineral admixtures were evaluated respectively.The results show that most mineral admixture can not improve corrosion resistance of concrete at early ages.However,in the long term the addition of mineral admixtures can decrease obviously the permeability of concrete and free chloride content in the pore solution of concrete as well as effectively improve the protection ability of passive film of steel rebar.
In order to improve the mechanical properties and Greenness of engineered cementitious composites (ECC),four-point bending test,compressive strength and flexural strength test were employed to analyze the effects of fly ash content on the mechanical properties of.ECC.The replacement ratio of cement with fly ash was 50%,60%,70% and 80%,respectively.The experimental results indicate that ECCs with high volume fly ash still remained the characteristic of pseudo-strain hardening and the mid-span deflection in four-point bending test increase remarkably by adding more fly ash.The observations of ECCs indicate that the multiple cracks are saturated and the crack width is relatively smaller for higher volume fly ash ECC,owing to the lower strength of matrix and the improvement ofinterface bonding.Fly ash reduces the compressive strength and flexural strength of ECC at all ages.Therefore,as the compressive strength could meet the requirement of practical engineering,employing the higher volume fly ash ECCs would benefit to obtain relatively high ductility.
Inhibition measurement of shrinkage of engineering cementitious composites (ECC) was investigated due to typical ECC with higher free drying shrinkage.The effects of ex-panded admixture (EA),shrinkage reducing admixture (SRA),coarse sand+stone powder (CS+SP) and superabsorbent polymer (SAP) on drying shrinkage and mechanical properties were studied.The experimental results show that ECC incorporating EA,SRA and coarse sand can retain around 60% of the typical ECC's free drying shrinkage.Superabsorbent polymerl(SAP) can delay the de-velopment of free drying shrinkage of ECC at different ages,and the effect of SAP is not distinct like the actions of EA,superabsorbent polymer(SRA) and coarse sand.Significantly,SAP may act as artificial flaw to form a more homogeneous defect system that increases the potential of saturated multiple cracking,hence the ductility of ECC will be improved greatly.
