ABSTRACT


Concrete is considered as one of the most used materials worldwide in the construction industry. Thus the strength and the durability of concrete well are the major factors of concern for almost all the civil engineering projects. In fact, along with the other factors such as materials, batching, mixing, manufacturing technique etc. the curing is another major factor affecting the overall performance of the hardened concrete. Furthermore, the curing techniques and curing duration govern the various properties of the concrete. This study focuses to investigate experimentally the effect of initial wet curing duration on the compressive strength of the concrete and to optimize the minimum duration required. The concrete of 1:2:4 with w/c ratio
0.5 is considered for the study. Cube specimens of standard size are cast tested to determine the compressive strength. Initially the specimens were cured in water for different duration and then exposed to the different curing regimes, room temperature, wet curing, ambient temperature etc. up to the testing age. In addition, the specimens were cured in water continuously and the other specimens were exposed to room temperature and ambient temperature without initial wet curing up to the age of testing. The specimens were tested at 1, 3, 7, 14, 28, 60 and 91 days. The results reveal that the concrete cured in control temperature i.e room temperature requires 7 days initial wet curing as optimum wet curing duration. However, if the concrete is to be exposed to high ambient temperature then initial wet/moist curing period may be optimized at 14 days.