Abstract:
The moisture loss and drying shrinkage behavior of mortar with mineral admixture such as
blast-furnace slag and fly ash are investigated focusing on the microstructure affected by curing
temperature. The curing at high temperature greatly accelerates the hydration reaction of the mortar with
mineral admixture to make pore structure denser and leads to smaller moisture loss than that of mortar
without mineral admixture. The moisture loss is almost proportional to the accumulated volume of pores
whose radii are larger than the radius at the liquid/vapour interface based on the Kelvin equation and BET
theory of absorbed water. When the shrinkage is assumed to be induced only by the capillary tension, the
estimated shrinkage shows different tendency from experimental one. It suggests that the other shrinkage
driving forces that have been believed to be dominant under severe drying conditions should be taken into
account even under normal drying condition (RH=60% at 20 degree).
