Construction and Building Materials 202 (2019) 528–536

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Use of MgO expansion agent to compensate concrete shrinkage

in jointed reinforced concrete pavement under high-altitude
environmental conditions
Kaijian Huang a, Xijun Shi b,⇑, Dan Zollinger b, MirMilad Mirsayar c, Aiguo Wang d, Liwu Mo e
a
College of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210037, China
b
Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, United States
c
Department of Aerospace Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, United States
d
Anhui Key Laboratory of Advanced Building Materials, Anhui Jianzhu University, Hefei, Anhui 230022, China
e
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 211800, China

h i g h l i g h t s

 Investigating use of MgO expansion agent to compensate concrete shrinkage under high-altitude environmental conditions.
 Determining different properties of concrete mixtures containing varying contents of MgO expansion agent in the lab.
 Assessing the jointed reinforced concrete pavement field sections made with MgO expansion agent concrete in Tibet, China.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: To mitigate concrete pavement cracking at high-altitude locations, jointed reinforced slabs made with
Received 29 September 2018 concrete containing MgO expansion agent (MEA) were investigated in this study. Firstly, concrete mix-
Received in revised form 3 January 2019 tures with varying MEA contents were tested in the lab to evaluate the effect of MEA on concrete’s
Accepted 7 January 2019
mechanical properties (compressive strength and flexural strength), volume change, and presence of
Available online 16 January 2019
microcracking. Field data including the strain of the concrete slab and the stress of the steel reinforce-
ment in the concrete pavements with and without MEA were collected subsequently at the Shigatse
Keywords:
Aiport in Tibet, China. The lab results indicate that the addition of MEA decreases concrete’s compressive
Jointed reinforced concrete pavement
MgO expansion agent
strength (up to 27%), but a slight improvement (up to 12%) in flexural strength is achieved when the MEA
Concrete shrinkage content is limited to 8%. The field study shows that the volume expansion caused by MEA hydration can
High-altitude environmental conditions effectively compensate concrete shrinkage. The concrete expansion could reduce the width of the trans-
verse crack and make concrete slab act like a prestressed member, which could lead to better pavement
performance.
Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
While concrete is considered one of the most versatile construc-
tion materials with superior capacity under compressive loading, it
suffers some serious drawbacks. One drawback is that concrete
experiences time-dependent volume reductions due to drying
shrinkage, thermal contraction, autogenous shrinkage, and carbon-
ation shrinkage [1–3]. If concrete is restricted, the potential to
shrink causes tensile stress in concrete. Since concrete typically
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: huangkaijian@njfu.edu.cn (K. Huang), jeffshixijun@tamu.edu
(X. Shi), d-zollinger@tamu.edu (D. Zollinger), mirmilad@tamu.edu (M. Mirsayar),
wag3134@126.com (A. Wang), andymoliwu@njtech.edu.cn (L. Mo).
has low tensile strength, cracks can easily develop once the
induced tensile stress exceeds the tensile strength. In concrete
pavement, the concrete layer is restrained by contact with support-
ing soils, granular fill, adjoining structures, or reinforcement within
the concrete, so cracking is a very common phenomenon [4].
The cracking of concrete pavement can be even more severe in
high altitude locations. Under high altitude environmental condi-
tions, the daily temperature variation can be much higher than
that for locations with the normal altitude. In addition, the sunlight
at high elevation is extremely strong during the noontime, which
causes a high amount of water evaporation on the concrete pave-
ment surface. Although transverse crack is acceptable in a rein-
forced concrete pavement design, it provides channel for ions
and moisture to penetrate the concrete structure, which leads to

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2019.01.041
0950-0618/Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 K. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 202 (2019) 528–536
corrosion of reinforcement and other durability problems. As a
result, it is very challenging to build conventional concrete pave-
ment which can last long in high-altitude locations such as Tibet
which has an average sea level of over 4900 m [5].
Many approaches have been suggested to mitigate shrinkage
cracking of concrete pavement [6–11]. There is a growing interest
of using expansive additive to compensate volume reduction of
concrete. The traditional expansive additives are sulfoaluminate,
aluminate clinker or CaO-based expansive additives [12]. These
traditional expansive additives depend strongly on wet curing,
and their expansions mainly occur within 14 days after mixing;
they may be inadequate to compensate the shrinkage of concrete
after 2 weeks of construction [13]. MgO expansion agent (MEA)
exhibits its unique behavior and has significant advantages over
the traditional expansive additives. The hydration of MEA needs
less water, and its hydration product, Mg (OH)2, is more stable in
hardened cement [12]. Additionally, the hydration activity and
expansion property of MEA can be designed by regulating the cal-
cining temperature and residence time in kiln, enabling the spe-
cially designed MEA to compensate different types of shrinkage
at both early and later age of concrete [14].
MEA has primarily been used in dam concrete to mitigate/over-
come the thermal shrinkage of the mass concrete structure, which
in turn minimizes or eliminates the relatively expensive tempera-
ture control measures in dam construction [12]. However, MEA
concrete has rarely been applied in pavement structure since the
shrinkage cracking of concrete pavement can be effectively con-
trolled through appropriate concrete pavement design approach
(such as use of saw cutting or steel reinforcement). Because con-
crete experiences much higher shrinkage under high-altitude envi-
ronmental conditions as such concrete pavement designed with
conventional materials (e.g., plain concrete) and construction
methods (e.g., saw cutting the slab) might not survive at high ele-
vation. The use of MEA to compensate concrete shrinkage brings
opportunities to build sustainable concrete pavement under harsh
environments [15,16].
The present study was based on a pavement field section
located at Shigatse Airport of Tibet. The airport runway, initially
built in 1972 using the joint plain concrete pavement type, contin-
uously exhibited severe distresses even after two major rehabilita-
tions using conventional methods took place in 1990 and 2001.
These conventional rehabilitation methods included 1) repairing
joint sealants and broken concrete adjacent to joints, 2) patching
slab segments which had corner breaks, and 3) complete removal
and recast of pavement slabs that had excess faulting distress.
After some studies, the poor performance of the original concrete
pavement is believed to be associated with excess shrinkage of
concrete due to the harsh environment [17]. The excess shrinkage
of concrete deteriorated the overall integrity of pavement and
eventually facilitated the development of faulting, D-cracking,
and corner breaks distresses. In 2008, the pavement was entirely
reconstructed using the jointed reinforced concrete pavement
(JRCP) type. To compensate the excess concrete shrinkage, the
use of the MEA in concrete together with joint cuts were adopted
in the newly constructed pavement. Additionally, transverse and
longitudinal steel reinforcements were embedded in the concrete
slab for holding the concrete together and preventing the slab from
over-expansion.
2. Research significance
This paper investigated the use of MEA in JRCP for high-altitude
applications. An extensive lab study was first carried out to assess
the effect of MEA on concrete’s mechanical properties (compres-
sive strength and flexural strength), volume change, and the devel-
529
opment of microcracking. Field data were collected subsequently
at the Shigatse Airport in Tibet, where pavement sections using
MEA incorporated concrete were built. To compare the structure
designs for this specifically designed pavement, two different lon-
gitudinal reinforcement ratios (i.e., 0.1% and 0.2%) and two joint
spacings (4 m and 8 m) were used in the instrumented pavement
slabs. This study infers that this specially designed concrete pave-
ment is able to maintain good field performance under the harsh
environment. Thanks to the positive results in this study, the use
of MEA together with steel reinforcement in concrete should be
highly promoted for building pavement at high-altitude locations.
3. Experimental program
All the raw materials used to construct the field sections meet
the Chinese Standard GB/T14684, GB/T14685, and GB 175 and
were intended to formulate a control mix with a 28-day design
flexural strength of 5.5 MPa. The materials used for the field inves-
tigations were transported to the lab for producing lab mixtures.
The concrete mixture adopted a 0.36 water to cement ratio. The
cement was Ordinary portland cement. The sand was natural sand
with a fineness modulus of 2.8. The coarse aggregate was lime-
stone and had a density of 2560 kg/m3; it was a blend of coarser-
sized aggregate (20–40 mm) and intermediate-sized aggregate
(5–20 mm) at a ratio of 7:3. A water reducer was used as the chem-
ical admixture; the expanding agent was MEA, which was obtained
from Nanjing University of Technology. The MEA was produced at
a temperature of 900 °C with a chemical activity is 120–150 s.
Table 1 shows the mixture proportion of concrete used in the lab.
3.1. Mechanical property test
A universal testing machine was used to determine the com-
pressive strength and flexural strength of the studied concrete
mixtures; the tests followed the Chinese Standard GB/T 50080.
150  150  150 mm cubic specimens were prepared for the com-
pression test, while 150  150  550 mm beam specimens were
used to determine the flexural strength of the mixtures using a
four-point bending loading configuration. For each type of mixture,
three replicates after 28 days of curing (using saturated limewater)
were used for both compression and flexure tests.
3.2. Volume change test
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) cylindrical molds with 240 mm in
diameter and 300 mm in height were used for specimen casting
(Fig. 1). Fresh concrete mixture was dumped in the cylindrical
mold, after which a vibrating strain gage was positioned in the cen-
ter of the specimen using a transmission line. The entire specimen
was vibrated on a vibrating table for 40 s for consolidation. The
mold was then covered by a PVC board with the gaps filled with
epoxy resin. The entire specimen preparation process was com-
pleted within 20 min to prevent moisture loss of the specimen.
The sealed specimens were immediately transported to a 20 °C
curing room for collecting volume change data at different time
periods.
3.3. Microcracking observation
To investigate the effect of MEA on concrete’s microstructure,
concrete cylindrical specimens were produced and cured in satu-
rated limewater for 56 days. The selection of a 56-day curing time
warranted that most of the cement and MEA had been hydrated.
Scanning electron microscope (SEM) samples (800 mm3) were
robustly selected from the cylindrial specimens; the cylindrical
530 K. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 202 (2019) 528–536

Table 1
Mixture proportions of the studied concrete.

Material (kg/m3) Sample Number

G1 (0% MEA) G2 (5% MEA) G3 (8% MEA) G4 (10% MEA)
Cement 320 320 320 320
Water 116 116 116 116
Coarse aggregate 1505 1505 1505 1505
Sand 650 650 650 650
Water reducer 8 8 8 8
MEA — 16.0 25.6 32.0

spacing (i.e., 8 m) were also constructed to evaluate the effect of

joint spacing on pavement performance. The mixture proportion
of concrete used in the test section was G1 for the control section
and G3 (8% MEA) for the MEA section, whose mix designs are
shown in Table 1. The selection of G3 as the MEA mixture was
based on the lab test findings that the G3 mixture exhibited good
expansion property along with improvement in flexural strength
(presented later). The layout of the MEA concrete test sections is
shown in Fig. 2. Before casting the slabs, concrete strain gages
and steel stress analyzers were positioned at the center of edge,
interior, and corner of slab in the longitudinal and transverse direc-
tions, respectively. The testing locations for each testing slab are
shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 1. Volume change test.

4. Results and discussion

specimen was cut into four disks and then one representative por-
tion from each disk specimen was selected. The selected samples
were further polished and submerged to an alcohol solution to
terminate hydration. Before the SEM imaging, the samples were
oven dried, followed by coating with carbon. The microstructural
features of the studied mixtures were observed using a 3D SEM
produced by FEI Company.
3.4. Field investigation
The field test sections were located in the west runway near the
parking lot; it has a pouring area of 960 m2 (16  60 m). Except for
the control section, a constant transverse reinforcement ratio
(0.06%) was used for all the sections; three quarters of the sections
used 0.20% longitudinal reinforcement and the rest had 0.10% of
steel. The rebar diameter was 10 mm. The PCC slab thickness was
250 mm, and all the steel reinforcement was installed 100 mm
beneath the surface of slab. While a shorter than the conventional
joint spacing (4 m) was used for most of the sections to achieve
better anti-cracking performance, four sections with a longer joint
4.1. Volume change test results
The strain of specimens with different MEA contents is shown
in Fig. 4. Because the concrete specimens were fully sealed in the
PVC cylindrical molds and placed in the curing room with the con-
stant temperature, the measured volume change of the specimen is
regarded as the net effect of autogenous shrinkage and expansion
due to the MEA hydration; no thermal or drying shrinkage is con-
sidered. The autogenous shrinkage occurred in the early age of
hydration, so the negative strain of the control specimen rapidly
developed within the first 20 days and the volume change of the
specimen significantly slowed down in the later stage. When the
MEA is added, the volume reduction due to the autogenous shrink-
age is effectively mitigated; the specimen with 5% MEA generally
exhibited a no-shrink behavior. For the specimens with higher
MEA content (i.e., 8% and 10%), a considerable amount of volume
expansions was observed; the higher the MEA content, the higher
the volume expansion was. For the specimen with 10% MEA, it only
took 5 days to compensate the autogenous shrinkage to reach the
4.02 me tensile strain.

Fig. 2. Locations of MEA concrete testing sections.

 K. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 202 (2019) 528–536 531

(a) Slab 1 (b) Slab 2

(c) Slab 3 (d) Slab 4

(e) Slab 5
Fig. 3. Testing locations for each testing slab.

4.2. Mechanical property test results
The compressive strength and flexural strength of the studied
mixtures are shown in Figs. 5 and 6, respectively. From Fig. 5,
the addition of MEA generally reduced the compressive strength
of concrete for both 7 days and 28 days. At the lower MEA con-
tents (i.e., 5% and 8%), the compressive strength reduction was
within 3% and 7% relative to the control mixture for 7 days
and 28 days, respectively. When the 10% MEA content was used,
the reduction reached to 20% for 7 days and 27% for 28 days. For
the flexural strength, the addition of a small amount of MEA
appeared to yield some improvement. An increase of 12% in
the flexural strengths was achieved for the mixture containing
5% MEA. Higher MEA contents started to cause reduction in
the flexural strength, but the 8% mixture still had higher 28-
day flexural strength than the control mixture. At the 10% MEA
532 K. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 202 (2019) 528–536

It is concluded from the mechanical property measurement that

the MEA concrete mixtures generally yielded some reduction in
the compressive strength, but the reduction was relatively small
when the MEA content was limited to 8%. On the other hand, the
flexural strength was not impaired significantly and even showed
some improvement for the 5% mixture. In addition, all the 28-
day flexural strength values meet the 4.5 MPa flexural strength
requirement specified in the Chinese standard (MH/T 5004). Since
flexure is the primary loading condition for pavement structure,
the flexural strength of concrete material is more relevant to pave-
ment performances [18–20]. While it has not been further vali-
dated, the possible reason for the decrease of compressive
strength for MEA concrete is that the hydration production, mag-
nesium hydroxide, may play a similar role as the calcium hydrox-
ide (CH) in the interfacial transition zone (ITZ) of concrete. It is
widely known that the ITZ in concrete is a weak zone due to the
presence of larger CH crystals and their preferential orientation.
It might be true that larger magnesium hydroxide crystals also
Fig. 4. Volume change test results.
tend to grow in the ITZ and form a preferential orientation, which
further weaken the ITZ. When concrete is under compression, the
major failure zone is the interfacial zone between the cement paste
and aggregate, and the ITZ strength significantly affect the com-
60
pressive strength [21]. Since the MEA concrete has a weaker ITZ,
its compressive strength is lower. On the other hand, when con-
crete is subject to tension, cracks usually start within the matrix,
50 and the ITZ might not matter too much. When a small amount of
MEA is added, the matrix is more compact due to the expansion.
However, too much MEA addition would cause the matrix to
/MPa

40 over-expand and form microcracks, which eventually leads to

reduction in flexural strengths [12]. This explains the increasing
7 day
and then decreasing trend in Fig. 6.

30
28 day
4.3. Microcracking in the concrete

The results for microcrack development in the studied samples

20
G1 (0) G2 (5%) G3 (8%) G4 (10%) are presented in Fig. 7. In the control sample (Fig. 7(a)), the pres-
Samples ence of microcracks is obvious under the 200 magnified view.
These microcracks were associated with the autogenous shrinkage,
Fig. 5. Compressive strength the mixtures with different MEA contents. chemical shrinkage, and temperature shrinkage of the concrete. On
the other hand, Fig. 7(b–d) show that when the MEA were added in
the concrete, the amount of microcracks was dramatically reduced.
7 When the MEA content is higher than 8%, no visual microcracks
were observed, and the cement paste appeared to be very compact.
6

4.4. Strain and stress in the slabs

5

4.4.1. Strain for different reinforcement ratios

4
Fig. 8 shows the results of concrete strain at different slab loca-
/MPa

tions for the reinforcement ratio of 0.1% and 0.2%. Compared to the
3 control slabs (without reinforcement or MEA), adding MEA to con-
crete can efficiently compensate the volume reduction of concrete
2 slab. For the strain measurement at the longitudinal direction
7 day (Fig. 8(a), (b)), the values for the 0.2% reinforcement are generally
1 28 day lower than those for the 0.1% reinforcement; this can be explained
as that the higher reinforcement ratio provided higher restriction
0 for concrete to expand. Fig. 8(c) shows the volume expansion at
G1 (0) G2 (5%) G3 (8%) G4 (10%) the transverse direction. In general, the 0.1% slab exhibits a lower
Samples amount of volume expansion compared to the 0.2% slab, despite
that the reinforcement ratio at the transverse direction is same
Fig. 6. Flexural strength of the mixtures with different MEA contents. for the two slabs. Since the 0.1% slab yields higher expansion at
the longitudinal direction, it is reasonable that its transverse
expansion will be lower because the expansion in one direct will
content, the flexural strength of the MEA concrete decreased by
cause contraction in the other direction. It is interesting to see that
18% when compared to the control mixture for both the 7-day
the edge locations (Fig. 8(b), (c)) began to shrink at the later age
and 28-day testing date.
while the center location (Fig. 8(a)) appeared to maintain a con-
 K. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 202 (2019) 528–536
(a) Control (0% MEA)
(c) 8% MEA
Fig. 7. Microstructure of the studied mixtures with varying MEA contents.
stant expansion for a longer time. This observation manifests that
the slab edge tends to dry faster than the middle of the slab.
4.4.2. Strain at different depths
Fig. 9 compares the concrete strain at different slab depths for
the 0.1% slab and the 0.2% slab, respectively. The tensile strains
at 200 mm below the slab surface are bigger than the strains at
100 mm regardless of the ratio of reinforcement. This is caused
by the restrain of reinforcement mesh (located at 100 mm) and
the moisture gradient inside pavement slab. The previous investi-
gations show that the bottom of the slab can maintain higher mois-
ture content for a longer time compared to the slab top [22].
Because of the difference in the moisture content, the drying
shrinkage is usually smaller at the slab bottom. The higher mois-
ture content also facilitates the MEA hydration and induces higher
volume expansion. In addition, the expansion of concrete at
100 mm was further restrained by the steel mesh which was
placed at the same slab depth.
4.4.3. Strain for different slab dimensions
Fig. 10 compares the concrete strain of the large-size slab
(4 m  8 m, hereinafter referred to as the large-size slab) and that
of the normal size slab (4 m  4 m, hereinafter referred to as the
small-size slab). As shown in the figure, the longitudinal strain of
the large-size slabs was smaller than that of the small-size slabs
despite of the same reinforcement ratio. This can be interpreted
as the small-size slabs has less restraint longitudinally against
the potential of volume change compared to the large-size slabs.
This hypothesis can be validated by the comparable volume
changes of the large-size slabs and the small-size slabs in the
transverse direction given they have same slab width.
533
(b) 5% MEA
(d) 10% MEA
4.4.4. Stress of the steel reinforcement
The stresses in the steel reinforcement were obtained from the
stress analyzers. Fig. 11 shows the results. The results show that
the reinforcement steels have developed significant tensile stress
with time. When concrete expands due to the MEA addition, the
bond between the steel and concrete prevents the concrete from
expanding, which induces tensile stress in the steel and compres-
sive stress in the concrete. This mechanism is exactly opposite as
that for the concrete shrinkage which will develop tensile stresses
in concrete. The induced compressive stress, making the concrete
slab acting similarly like a prestressed member, can effectively
control cracks and improve the stability of pavement’s structure.
5. Conclusions
The Shigates airport is located at the south of Tibet in China
with an average sea level of over 3800 m. The climate in this area
is quite different from the places with normal altitudes. The daily
and annual temperature fluctuations are relatively large; the
region also shows seasonal dry-wet climate. Additionally, the sun-
light in the noon is extremely strong which causes a high amount
of evaporation. As a result, concrete pavement cracks much more
easily under the action of concrete shrinkage subject to the specific
environmental conditions. In order to mitigate concrete slab crack-
ing, reinforcement mesh together with MEA are used in the con-
crete slab. This investigation shows positive results of using this
specifically designed pavements for the high-altitude locations.
The major findings are:
 Although the addition of MEA decreases concrete’s compressive
strength, it improves the flexural strength when the MEA addi-
tion is limited to 8%. Since concrete flexural strength is more
534 K. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 202 (2019) 528–536

60
60 40
40 20
20 0
0
-20
-20

-6
-40
-6

10
-40
10

-60 -60

-80 -80
-100 -100 Control slab
Control slab
-120 P0.2%
P0.2% -120 P0.1%
-140 P0.1%
-140
-160
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
Curing age/d Curingage/d
(a) Center of the slab, longitudinal direction (b) Edge of the slab, longitudinal direction

60

40

20

0
-6

-20
10

-40

-60

-80 Control slab

P0.2%
-100 P0.1%

-120
0 20 40 60 80 100
Curing age/d
(c) Edge of the slab, transverse direction
Fig. 8. Comparison of concrete strains for slabs with different reinforcement ratio at different locations.

90
100
P0.1%-200mm 80 P0.2%-100mm
P0.1%-100mm P0.2%-200mm
80 70

60
60
50
-3

-6
/10

40 40
/10

30
20
20

0 10

0
-20
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0 20 40 60 80
curing age/d curing age/d
(a) 0.1% reinforcement (b) 0.2% reinforcement
Fig. 9. Comparison of concrete strains at different depths.
 K. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 202 (2019) 528–536 535

50
P0.2% (4m 4m) 80
45
P0.2% (4m 8m) 70 P0.2% (4m 4m)
40 P0.2% (4m 8m)
60
35
50
30
40
-6

25

-6
/10

30

/10
20
20
15
10
10
0
5
-10
0
-20
-5
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
Curing age/d Curing age/d

(a) Longitudinal direction (b) Transverse direction

Fig. 10. Comparison of concrete strains for different slab dimensions.

35 20
transverse at slab edge longitudinal at slab center
30 longitudinal at slab edge 15 longitudinal at slab edge
transverse at slab corner transverse at slab edge
25
10
20
MPa
MPa

5
15
0
10

-5
5

0 -10
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80
Curing age/d Curing age/d
(a) 0.1% steel reinforcement (b) 0.2% steel reinforcement
Fig. 11. Comparison of steel stresses for different reinforcement ratios.

relevant to pavement performance, the MEA concrete is not
considered to be a lower strength material for pavement
applications.
 The addition of MEA makes concrete exhibit expansive behav-
iors. The higher the MEA content, the higher the concrete vol-
ume expansion. The SEM pictures clearly indicate that such
volume expansion helps mitigate microcrack development
induced by concrete shrinkage.
 The concrete volume expansion associated with the MEA hydra-
tion together with the reinforcement in the slab can effectively
control concrete shrinkage. The developed compressive stress in
the concrete can make pavement slab act like prestressed mem-
ber. Compared with the control slab, the overall performance of
MEA reinforced concrete pavement could be much better.
 The use of 0.2% reinforcement did not show substantial advan-
tages over the 0.1% reinforcement, so it is recommended to use
0.1% reinforcement to reduce cost for future applications. A
longer slab (i.e., 8 m) is preferable in this study because it can
save labor cost and won’t yield slabs with excess expansion.
This study clearly infers that this specially designed concrete
pavement was able to maintain good field performance under
the harsh environment. As a result, the use of MEA together with
steel reinforcement in concrete should be highly promoted for
building pavements at high-altitude locations. The future works
of this study include a detailed investigation of the mechanism
for strength increase/decrease when the MEA is added into con-
crete. Also, determination of the optimum joint spacing for the
field construction and exploring new joints sealant for MEA con-
crete pavement [23,24] are highly needed.
Conflict of interest
None.
Acknowledgements
Financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (51608273, 51778003, 51778300), the Natural Science
Foundation of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China
(16KJB560008), Key laboratory of advanced building materials of
Anhui province – China (JZCL201603KF), and State Key Laboratory
of High Performance Civil Engineering Materials – China
536 K. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 202 (2019) 528–536
(2016CEM004); Texas A&M University – United States and Texas
A&M Transportation Institute – United States are acknowledged.
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