Experimental study on basic and drying creep for an alkali-activated slag concrete and comparison with existing creep models

Abstract

Slag is a by-product of the steel industry that can be activated using alkali solutions to form concrete. This study presents new experimental results of basic and drying creep behavior of alkali-activated slag (AAS) concrete. Different parameters affecting creep such as loading age, sample size and creep stress-strength ratio were varied for experimental studies. The results show that the basic creep of AAS concrete is higher than that of ordinary Portland cement (OPC) concrete. The drying creep of AAS is lower than for OPC and this could be explained by a higher internal drying during the activation of slag. The experimental results were used to check the applicability of two existing engineering models, the fib MC 2010 and the B4s model, for AAS concrete. It was found that both models could be extended to predict the basic creep of AAS concrete. For drying creep, the B4s could better capture the creep behavior. For the fib MC 2010, a new formulation for drying creep would be required.