Hourly-Repeated Three-Minutes Creep Testing of a Limestone Calcined Clay Cement Paste (LC3)

Early-age characterization of cement pastes, mortars, and concretes is important for the design of engineering structures which are made of cementitious materials and loaded at early ages. This paper provides an overview of early-age mechanical testing methods regarding the strength, stiffness, and creep properties of cement-based materials. Uniaxial compressive strength tests, ultrasound pulse transmission tests, and hourly-repeated three-minutes creep tests are then performed to characterize two types of cement pastes. They are made from an ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and an LC3 system containing 70% OPC, 15% calcined clay, and 15% limestone. The hourly-repeated three-minutes creep tests are started at material ages of one day, and they are kept running until the materials are seven days old. The comparison of results obtained from both types of tested materials will improve the mechanical understanding of LC3 systems which are a promising alternative to traditional Portland cement, because they significantly reduce the CO2 emissions associated with the production of concrete.