Use of porous ceramic waste aggregates for internal curing of high-performance concrete

Internal curing has become extensively used to reduce autogenous shrinkage and consequently mitigate the high risk of early age cracking of high-performance concrete (HPC). This paper investigates the efficiency of internal wet curing provided by a new type of aggregate, "recycled waste porous ceramic coarse aggregates" (PCCA). Six different silica fume HPCs with and without the PCCA are examined with respect to measured physical and mechanical property development. Four different replacement proportions of normal weight coarse aggregate (NCA) by the PCCA have been evaluated. The results have shown a high effectiveness of the PCCA for internal curing purposes, to drastically reduce and even to completely eliminate autogenous shrinkage of HPC prepared with a very low water/binder ratio (w/b) of 0.15. It has been found that the incorporation of 40% of the PCCA leads to a non-shrinking HPC that results in an insignificant internal stress accompanied by a significant increase of the compressive strength. It should be noted that for the different proportions of the PCCA incorporated no decrease of the compressive strength has been observed at either early or later ages, as is the case with some conventional lightweight aggregates.