Curing Concrete Paving Mixtures

Project Details
STATE

FHWA

SOURCE

TRID

END DATE

11/01/18

RESEARCHERS

Tom Van Dam

SPONSORS

FHWA

KEYWORDS

Binders, Concrete curing, Concrete pavements, Curing agents, Curing and setting agents, Hydration, Mixtures, Pavements

Project description

Proper curing of a newly placed concrete pavement is an essential step to ensure that the concrete as designed, batched, and placed reaches its full potential. Improper curing can result in inadequate hydration and reduced concrete strength and can negatively affect the near surface concrete properties including increased permeability, decreased wear resistance, and increased risk of plastic shrinkage cracking.This Tech Brief focuses specifically on approaches commonly used for curing cast-in-place concrete pavements. The most common method is the application of membrane-forming curing compounds, although fogging, plastic sheets, wetted materials, and insulated blankets may also be used depending on the type of project and the ambient conditions during and after placement. Also discussed briefly is internal curing using prewetted lightweight aggregate. In the context of this Tech Brief, two curing steps are considered: 1) initial curing applied during or immediately after the concrete is placed under less-than-favorable conditions, and 2) conventional curing applied once the concrete has undergone initial set.
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