Maturity method to estimate early age concrete strength in cold weather: alternative activation energy calibration

ABSTRACT

Many critical concreting activities require the determination of the in-place concrete strength. It can be costly to wait too long to execute these activities, but acting too early can have a negative impact on structural performance. Conventional moulded concrete cylinders and alternative strength assessment methods such as the maturity method are commonly used to assess concrete’s in-place strength. This study is focused on a special case when the maturity method is applied for evaluating concrete strength in cold weather at an early age. Specifically, the study proposes an alternative method for calibrating the activation energy, an input for the maturity method. Concretes cured at two different temperatures are used to calibrate the activation energy. The maturity method based on this activation energy predicted the cold weather concrete’s compressive strength satisfactorily. It was also found that for a successful application of the proposed activation energy calibration, the two temperatures should represent the expected minimum and maximum temperature at the site. Furthermore, the results showed that the maturity method based on the proposed activation energy calibration method performed better than the conventional cylinder method.

KEYWORDS:

• Alternative activation energy calibration
• cold weather concrete
• core strength
• early-age concrete strength
• maturity method

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the financial and technical support provided by Elvin group and the Innovation Connections Programme. The authors would also like to thank the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (1206836- AUS-HFST-P).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Elvin group and the Innovation Connections Programme and the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung [1206836-AUS-HFST-P].