Dry Shrinkage and Frost Resistance Performance of Cement Stabilized Aggregate Materials

Abstract

In this paper, the mechanical, dry shrinkage and frost resistance performance of cement stabilized aggregate materials were investigated. Furthermore, the nonlinear analysis between dry shrinkage strain and frost resistance performance was conducted. The results showed that the mechanical performance of cement stabilized aggregate with different cement content showed a linear improving relationship. A higher cement content owns a correspondingly better mechanical performance. With the different moisture content, the dry shrinkage and frost resistance performance of cement stabilized aggregate material showed a similar improving and deteriorating trend. With the increasing moisture content, the dry shrinkage strain and dry shrinkage coefficient were improved and reached to the optimum values, and then started to deteriorate. The optimum dry shrinkage and frost resistance performance were obtained with 6.0% moisture content. The nonlinear relationship between dry shrinkage strain and frost resistance coefficient was gained and the correspondingly optimum dry shrinkage strain and frost resistance was discerned, i.e. 94.3×10-6 and 47.6, respectively. The moisture content significantly influence the pore parameters of prepared samples, whose trend followed those of dry shrinkage and frost resistance performance. The pore size distribution of these composites shifted toward smaller pore size scope with a proper moisture content. In addition, scanning electron micrographs (SEM) showed that the denser microstructure of prepared cement stabilized aggregate materials.