j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 1 ; 1 4 : 1 2 0 8 e1 2 2 1

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Original Article

Effect of early age loading on the subsequent

mechanical and permeability properties of concrete
and its mechanism analysis

Weipei Xue a,b,c,*, Hanwen Zhang a,b, Haopeng Li a,b, Wei Xu a,b
a
State Key Laboratory of Mining Response and Disaster Prevention and Control in Deep Coal Mines, Anhui
University of Science and Technology, Huainan 232001, China
b
School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan 232001, China
c
Post-doctoral Research Station of Safety Science and Engineering, Anhui University of Science and Technology,
Huainan 232001, China

article info abstract

Article history: Modern construction methods often result in concrete structures bearing loads at an early
Received 26 April 2021 age, which is different from the stress condition under the standard curing in the labo-
Accepted 10 July 2021 ratory. This study experimentally examined effects of different ages and external loads on
Available online 16 July 2021 subsequent mechanical and permeability properties of concrete, and investigated the
mechanism of effect from the perspective of internal structure changes. The results show
Keywords: when the early age loading reaches 40% of the current concrete strength, the original in-
Early age loading ternal structure of specimens will be severely damaged, reflecting significant increase in
Concrete the proportion of mesopores and macropores and obvious connectivity cracks, thus
Mechanical property making the mechanical and permeability properties deteriorate, and the earlier the applied
Permeability property load, the greater of this deterioration. However, when loading at 10%, the original internal
Internal structure structure cannot be changed greatly due to the low load level, and some parts of the
original pores are even compacted rather than expanded which has little effect on sub-
sequent mechanical and permeability properties of concrete.
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC
BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

research. Notably, such specimens are not subjected to any

1. Introduction
Concrete is widely used in construction projects, and its me-
chanical property and permeability directly influence the
safety and long-term use of engineering structures [1e4]. Re-
searchers generally use concrete specimens that have been
cured under standard conditions to carry out experimental
form of external loading during the 28 days curing period
[5e8]. However, modern construction methods are committed
to shortening the construction period to the extent possible;
as a result, construction organizations often apply significant
loading to concrete structures at an early age [9,10]. Chen et al.
[11] carried out triaxial mechanical property tests on concrete

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: xueweipei@aust.edu.cn (W. Xue).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmrt.2021.07.051
2238-7854/© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 1 ; 1 4 : 1 2 0 8 e1 2 2 1
after curing for 3, 7, 14, and 28 days to propose a mathematical
model for the prediction of the triaxial mechanical behavior of
early age concrete. Schutter [12] conducted a series of studies
on the mechanical property, cracking behavior, and critical
chloride penetration depth of early age concrete that provided
a reference for the design of durable concrete structures.
These studies focused on the mechanical property and
permeability of early age concrete, providing significant
guidance. However, as mentioned above, during the con-
struction process, loads are often applied to early age concrete
structures. At an early age, the strength of the concrete is low
and the development of the internal structure is not yet stable,
thus even a small load may change the subsequent perfor-
mance of the concrete. The influence of early age loading on
concrete performance in later periods must therefore be
investigated. In this vein, Jiang et al. [13] applied 30% of the
compressive strength of a lightweight aggregate concrete at
ages of 1, 3, 7, and 14 days to study the influence of early age
compression on creep behavior. Ye et al. [14] loaded fly ash
concrete at ages of 3, 5, and 7 days, observing that the
resulting deformation increased with increasing loading age,
and that the compressive strength of 14 day aged concrete
decreased. Du et al. [15] studied the deformation of early
concrete with time under progressive loading processes and
proposed a corresponding prediction model. Kim et al. [16]
proposed a creep development prediction model to explain
the effect of time on the elastic modulus of concrete loaded at
an early age. It can be seen that researchers have begun to pay
attention to the influence of early age loading on the subse-
quent performance of concrete, mainly focusing on the
deformation. Besides, Zhuang et al. [17] studied the effect of
early age loading on the axial compressive strength of con-
crete, only evaluated the strength of the specimens for each
loading age and magnitude, and did not investigate the cor-
responding change in the internal structure of the concrete.
Indeed, the influence of early age loading on the subsequent
permeability of concrete has not been previously investigated
[18e20].
The load on a concrete structure in the service stage
constantly changes [21,22]. However, the change in the
permeability of concrete under loading and unloading re-
mains unknown, and urgently needs to be studied because it
can help to more accurately reflect the actual engineering
situation. Unfortunately, scholars have not yet considered the
Fig. 1 e Concrete under loading and curing conditions at an early age (a) physical appearance and (b) schematic of loading
device.
1209
influence of external load when studying the permeability of
concrete [23e25]. Yao et al. [26] investigated the mechanical
property of shaft lining concrete under high pore water pres-
sure, and took samples from the failure section of the prism
specimen to observe the development of microcracks in con-
crete using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), and deter-
mined the reasons for changes in the macroscopic properties
from a microscopic point of view. Although SEM can clearly
observe the internal structure morphology of the sample, it
only analyzes the internal structure morphology of the local
observation area of the specimen. Kumar [27] used the mer-
cury intrusion method to observe the pore distribution of
concrete; however, the high pressure applied during the test
can easily destroy the original pore structure inside the
specimen and thus adversely affect the test results.
It is believed that the development of the internal structure
has an important effect on the macroscopic properties of
concrete [28,29]. Indeed, there are two important types of
performance indices that describe concrete structures: me-
chanical property and permeability. The former determines
the load bearing capacity of the concrete structure whereas
the latter affects their durability. Because early age construc-
tion loading is becoming increasingly common, and as a re-
view of relevant literature found that previous studies have
not investigated the influence of early age loading on the
subsequent mechanical property or permeability of concrete
from the perspective of internal structure change [30e32], this
study investigated the influence of the early age loading on the
subsequent mechanical property and permeability of con-
crete. To do so, this study employed uniaxial compression
tests to determine the mechanical property of early age loaded
concrete, and water permeability tests under variable
confining pressure to determine the permeability property of
early age loaded concrete and nuclear magnetic resonance
(NMR) technology to detect the distribution of microcracks
and micropores within. Notably, NMR is a non-destructive
testing method that can quickly establish the number of
pores and pore size distribution in a sample without
destroying the original pore structure. In addition, NMR fo-
cuses on the analysis of the whole specimen, and the test area
covers a wide range of areas, which can be well complemen-
tary to SEM. In this study, NMR and SEM are combined to
analyze the internal structure of concrete under early age
loading, so as to obtain more comprehensive data and more
1210 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 1 ; 1 4 : 1 2 0 8 e1 2 2 1
Table 1 e Concrete mix ratio.
Cement Fine aggregate Coarse aggregate
(kg/m3) (kg/m3) (kg/m3)
380 662.11 1151.89
convincing. The results of this research provide a reference for
the design of concrete structures intended to bear construc-
tion loads at an early age.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Early age loading application scheme
The early age concrete loading scheme applied in this
study was established using the stress monitoring results
of shaft lining concrete during underground engineering
construction [33,34]. The effects of loading at ages of 1
and 3 days with external loads of 10%, and 40% of the
corresponding compressive strength of the concrete at
those ages were accordingly evaluated. After 7 days of
curing, the load levels of all specimens were adjusted to
10%, and 40% of the compressive strength of the concrete
at that age. The load applied to the concrete specimens at
an early age must be constant over a long duration of
time. Although a servo pressure testing machine is able to
apply a constant load, the test could be suspended due to
a power outage during the experiment. Therefore, a set of
early age loading devices was designed (as shown in
Fig. 1) to apply early age loading to the concrete speci-
mens during the curing process. Once the concrete was
loaded and cured to an age of 15 days, then the applied
load was removed to allow the specimens to cure natu-
rally indoors to the age of 28 days. During this time, the
average temperature ranged from 19
C to 28
C, and the
relative air humidity was 85.1%.
Two steel plates with a yield stress of 235 MPa and di-
mensions of 280 mm  280 mm  20 mm were used as the top
and bottom of the early age loading device. The four 22-mm
diameter threaded rods and eight nuts used to clamp the
plates together were made of grade 10.9 steel. A 100e500 N m
torque wrench was used to tighten the nuts to the torque
required to achieve the desired load. As the early shrinkage of
concrete leads to a reduction in the applied load, the torque of
each nut was checked every 36 h to ensure consistency with
the desired load.
As the sum of the vertical forces in the loading device is
zero, the axial force in the threaded rod F ¼ P/4, where P is the
total load applied to the concrete specimen. The required axial
force in the threaded rods was thus converted into the
required torque using
Mt ¼ 0:2Fd
where Mt is the torque in N m, F is the axial force in the
threaded rod in N, and d is the rod diameter in mm.
Then, the relationship between P and Mt can be obtained as
P ¼ 20 Mt =d
2.2. Specimen preparation
Water The concrete used in this study contained P.O32.5 Portland
(kg/m3)
cement with river sand (fineness modulus of 2.93) as the fine
176 aggregate and limestone macadam (particle size range of
5e15 mm and crushing index of 8.7%) as the coarse aggregate.
The concrete mix proportions are shown in Table 1. Firstly,
150  150  150 mm cube specimens were cast for the
compressive strength tests at the different ages, shown in
Table 2. Secondly, using the scheme described in Section 2.1,
the loads were applied to the cube specimens after 1 day, 3
days, and 7 days of curing until 14 days of curing had elapsed.
After 28 days of curing, cores were taken from the concrete
cube specimens using coring, cutting, and grinding machines
in accordance with the GB/T50266-2013 standard [35] to
fabricate 50  100 mm standard cylinder specimens, and four
cylinder specimens for each loading age and magnitude were
subjected to mechanical property tests of uniaxial compres-
sion and water permeability tests under variable confining
pressure to understand the influence of early age loading on
the mechanical and permeability properties of the concrete. It
should be emphasized that when cutting, the uppermost and
the lowermost ends of the specimens were first trimmed by
20 mm to eliminate the inevitable variability of the pore
structure in the vicinity of the concrete end faces. The internal
pore structures of the concrete cylinder specimens were then
observed though NMR tests. It should be noted that during
normal use, a concrete structure is in a multiaxial stress state
[36]. Previous studies on the permeability of concrete have
ignored this by primarily applying impermeability tests or
chloride ion permeability tests without an external load
[37e39]. Therefore, this study investigated the permeability of
concrete after early age loading under the action of external
stress to obtain results that are relevant to the actual working
conditions.
2.3. Experiment procedure
A TAW-2000 electro-hydraulic servo pressure testing machine
was used to conduct the mechanical and water permeability
tests. This machine has three independent control systems:
an axial pressure control system, a confining pressure control
system, and a pore water pressure control system. The testing
machine uses an EDC full-digital servo controller from DOLI
Elektronik GmbH (Germany) and a servo valve from MOOG Inc.
(USA). During experiments, data such as the axial stress,
displacement, confining pressure, pore water pressure, and
pore water flow can be recorded and displayed in real time by
the TAW-2000. The mechanical properties (uniaxial
compression) test used only the axial pressure control system,
as shown in Fig. 2(a). In this test, the load was applied through
deformation control at 0.05 mm/min, and the data describing
(1)
Table 2 e Compressive strength of concrete of different
ages.
Time 1 day 3 days 7 days 28 days
curing curing curing curing
(2) Compressive strength (MPa) 8.3 16.3 23.6 35.4
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 1 ; 1 4 : 1 2 0 8 e1 2 2 1 1211

Fig. 2 e Apparatus used for the (a) mechanical experiment (b) permeability experiment.

the resulting axial stress, axial strain, and circumferential 1  2n

strain were recorded automatically. The permeability test εve ¼ s1 (4)
E
required the simultaneous use of all three independent con-
where E is the modulus of elasticity, v is the Poisson's ratio,
trol systems. The pore water pressure was held constant at
and s1 is the axial stress.
1.3 MPa, and the applied confining pressure was increased in
Martin and Chandler [40] suggested that the total volu-
stages from 2.0 MPa, to 3.5 MPa, 5.0 MPa, and 6.5 MPa, then
metric strain of a specimen under uniaxial compression
decreased in the same stages back to 2.0 MPa. At each stage,
consists of its elastic volumetric strain and crack volumetric
the pore water flow was monitored until it was in a steady
strain. Therefore, the crack volumetric strain εvc was obtained
state of seepage. The system was then left for at least 1 h
by subtracting the elastic volumetric strain from the total
before the confining pressure was changed to the next stage,
volumetric strain as follows.
as shown in Fig. 2(b).
εvc ¼ εv  εve (5)

The crack closure stress (scc ), crack initiation stress (sci ),

3. Results and discussion
damage stress (scd ), and peak stress (sf ) are key stress
thresholds in the process of concrete deformation and failure,
The specimen nomenclature used to discuss the results was
an understanding of which is critical when analyzing the
defined to include both the specimen loading age as well as
macroscopic mechanical properties of concrete specimens
the loading level. The specimens loaded after 1 day of curing
and studying the evolution of microscopic cracks within. The
with 10% and 40% of the corresponding concrete compressive
crack closure stress (scc ) and crack initiation stress (sci ) were
strengths at that time are represented by C-1d-10 and C-1d-40,
determined from the horizontal segments in the crack volu-
respectively. Similarly, the specimens loaded after 3 days of
metric strain curve [41]. The reversal point in the total volu-
curing with 10% and 40% of the corresponding compressive
metric strain curve, i.e., the point at which the state of the
strength at that time are represented by C-3d-10 and C-3d-40,
specimen changed from compression to expansion, was used
respectively. Finally, C-N-0 represents a specimen with zero
to determine the damage stress (scd ).
load application at an early age, which was used as a reference
The critical stress thresholds of each group of specimens
for comparison.
were determined as shown in Fig. 3. According to these critical
stress thresholds, the rising uniaxial compression curve can
3.1. Effect of early age loading on mechanical properties
be divided into four phases. Phase I is the crack closure phase
of concrete
in which the initial cracks and pores in the concrete close due
to the applied compression. The behavior in this phase is
The mechanical properties of the specimens were used to
closely related to the initial micro crack density and geometric
determine the effects of early age loading on the performance
characteristics. In this phase, the axial stressestrain curve is
of the concrete. The strains and stresses in the concrete at
approximately concave with obvious nonlinear characteris-
various phases of loading were accordingly obtained from the
tics, the volume of the specimen is reduced, and the material
test results as follows.
is in a state of compression. This phenomenon is relatively
The volumetric strain εv was obtained by:
rare [42,43], which is shown in that stage I accounts for a large
εv ¼ εaxial þ 2εlateral (3) proportion of the whole deformation process. Phase II is the
elastic deformation phase, in which the crack volumetric
where εaxial is the axial strain and εlateral is the circumferential
strain remains unchanged, and no damage occurs inside the
strain.
specimen. The axial stress and axial strain exhibit a linear
The elastic volumetric strain εve under uniaxial compres-
relationship that can be used to determine the elastic
sion was calculated by
modulus and Poisson's ratio. Phase III is the stable crack
1212 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 1 ; 1 4 : 1 2 0 8 e1 2 2 1

Fig. 3 e Uniaxial compression stressestrain curve (a) C-1d-10 (b) C-1d-40 (c) C-3d-10 (d) C-3d-40 (e) C-N-0.

propagation phase, which begins at the crack initiation stress specimens subjected to early age loading clearly decreased
and characterizes the initiation of new microcracks in the significantly compared to the reference specimen. The ratio
specimen. In this phase, the total volumetric strain curve no (scd =sf ) also showed a downward trend, decreasing by 28e52%,
longer exhibits a linear change, showing instead a relatively indicating that early age loading had a significant impact on the
small and nonlinear increase. At this time, the specimen is damage stress. This impact is the result of the low strength of
still in compression, and only by increasing the load can early age concrete, which enables the load to affect the devel-
cracks continue to grow. The duration of this stage is greatly opment of the internal structure. The damage stress of the
affected by the early age loading, it is obvious that the curing specimen under uniaxial compression is therefore reached
process is not affected by the early age loading, and the
duration of this stage is the longest. Phase IV is the unstable
crack propagation phase, which begins at the crack damage Table 3 e Threshold stresses defining the phases of each
stress and indicates that new microcracks have begun to specimen group.
develop inside the specimen. As the load continues to in-
Specimen group C-N-0 C-1d-10 C-1d-40 C-3d-10 C-3d-40
crease, the volumetric strain curve turns downward, and the
scc (MPa) 6.61 4.01 4.58 6.79 6.04
specimen changes from being in compression to being in
sci (MPa) 11.88 16.31 12.06 12.50 11.80
tension. In this phase, the specimen reaches the peak stress scd (MPa) 32.14 19.72 15.08 15.31 15.99
and is destroyed [44,45]. sf (MPa) 34.49 34.01 22.62 34.39 24.85
The threshold points that define the phases in each spec- sci/sf 0.34 0.48 0.53 0.36 0.47
imen are shown in Table 3. The damage stress (scd ) of scd/sf 0.93 0.58 0.67 0.45 0.64
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 1 ; 1 4 : 1 2 0 8 e1 2 2 1 1213

Fig. 4 e Specimen crack patterns after failure.

earlier. The crack initiation stress (sci ) showed a slight increase, mainly the result of tensile failure, and the crack paths are
and the ratio (sci =sf ) increased by 6e56%. It can thus be roughly parallel to the loading direction. The macroscopic
concluded that the crack initiation stress of specimens under failure characteristics of these specimens are thus the result
uniaxial compression is delayed after early age loading, and of the joint action of the tensile failure surfaces and the shear
new cracks begin to occur only after the original cracks are slip surfaces. Besides, the earlier the age of load, the more
compacted and closed and the specimen passes through the cracks appear after the failure of the specimens and the macro
elastic phase. It can be seen in Fig. 3 that for specimens sub- cracks run through the middle of coarse aggregate. The dif-
jected to early age loading, the duration of Phase I is longer than ference is that under the load of 3 days age, the macro cracks
that for the reference specimen. During macroscopic failure, spread along the boundary of coarse aggregate.
the relative decreases in peak stress (sf ) observed for C-1d-10
and C-3d-10 were smaller than those observed for C-1d-40 and 3.2. Effect of early age loading on permeability of
C-3d-40. This indicates that an applied stress of 10% of the concrete
compressive strength of concrete at the time of loading had
little effect on the final strength development of the specimens According to Darcy's law, the water permeability of a con-
after 1 day and 3 days of curing because the stress level applied crete specimen under confining pressure can be calculated
at those times was insufficient to cause considerable change in using
specimen behavior. However, the internal structure of the
mQL
specimen loaded after 1 day was more unstable than that of the k¼ (6)
ADp
specimen loaded after 3 days [46]. The decrease in peak stress
caused by loading after 1 day of curing was thus slightly greater where k is the permeability in m2; m is the viscosity coefficient
than that caused by loading after 3 days of curing. The C-1d-40 of seepage water, that is 1.005  103 Pa at 20
C; A is the cross-
specimen was the most affected by early age loading, as its sectional area of the seepage water through the specimen in
peak strength was reduced by 34%, followed by the C-3d-40 m2; Dp is the osmotic pressure in Pa; Q is the flow rate in the
specimen, whose peak strength was reduced by 28%. It can
therefore be concluded that the earlier the loading age, the
more unstable the internal structure of concrete. If the load
applied to the concrete is sufficiently large relative to the curing
age, it will inevitably have an adverse effect on the develop-
ment of the internal structure, causing the peak stress to be
significantly reduced. According to the results of the uniaxial
compression tests conducted in this study, the early age load
applied to concrete should not exceed 40% of its strength at that
time, otherwise the subsequent safety of the concrete structure
will be seriously compromised.
The first row in Fig. 4 shows the fracture photographs of
each specimen type after loading, and the second row shows a
corresponding sketch of the fracture. Compared with the
specimen that was not subjected to early age loading, the
uniaxial compression failure of the concrete specimens
loaded at an early age exhibit obvious tensile failure surfaces Fig. 5 e Variation in initial permeability according to
and typical shear slip surfaces. The macroscopic cracks are specimen.
1214 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 1 ; 1 4 : 1 2 0 8 e1 2 2 1
Fig. 6 e Permeability variation curve under confining pressure for specimens (a) C-1d-10 (b) C-1d-40 (c) C-3d-10 (d) C-3d-40
(e) C-N-0.
water seepage specimen in m3/s; and L is the height of the
specimen in m.
The permeability at the beginning of loading under a
confining pressure of 2.0 MPa and pore water pressure of
1.3 MPa was defined as the initial permeability [47]. The initial
permeability of each group of specimens is shown in Fig. 5, in
which it can be observed that the initial permeability of C-1d-
40 was the highest, followed by C-3d-40. The initial perme-
ability of these two specimen groups was an order of magni-
tude greater than that of the other three groups. Thus,
applying a load of 40% of the compressive strength of concrete
at an early age clearly results in a significant amount of initial
damage due to the corresponding change in the development
of the internal structure of the concrete. The initial damage
reduces the number of pores and cracks in the internal
structure, which serve as the main channels for pore water
seepage [48,49]. The earlier the age at which the load was
applied, the greater the impact of this initial damage. The
permeability of C-1d-10 was 6.64% less than that for C-N-0, but
was 5.60% greater than that for C-3d-10. It is thought that
under a small applied load, the initial cracks and pores in the
specimens were properly compacted, and new cracks and
pores could not be generated, so the number of penetration
channels was reduced and the permeability decreased. Criti-
cally, the internal structure of concrete after 3 days of curing is
more stable than that after 1 day of curing, so the compaction
effect is more significant and the permeability decrease is
more obvious in the latter case.
The permeability curves of the five groups of specimens
evaluated under different confining pressures in this study are
shown in Fig. 6. In the loading stage, the permeability
decreased with increasing confining pressure. The decrease in
permeability was the greatest when the confining pressure
was increased from 2.0 MPa to 3.5 MPa, accounting for be-
tween 54.44% and 73.35% of the entire permeability decrease
over the duration of the test. It is believed that this was pri-
marily caused by the initial crack and pore closure in the
concrete, which considerably decreased the available seepage
channels and thus the permeability. When confining pressure
was first applied, cracks and pores were sensitive to increases
in the confining pressure, which caused the cracks and pores
to be compacted. As the confining pressure continued to in-
crease, there were fewer cracks and pores that could be closed
and compressed, resulting in a smaller reduction in perme-
ability. As the confining pressure was unloaded, the perme-
ability gradually recovered, however, it did not reach the
initial permeability for each stage during confining pressure
loading. This indicates that while the elastic deformation of
the specimen during the confining pressure unloading process
can be recovered, the plastic deformation, which accounts for
a large proportion of the total deformation, is more difficult to
recover [50].
In order to more intuitively describe the variation of the
specimen permeability during the loading phase of the test
under different confining pressures, the dimensionless
permeability (DP) is used to reflect the influence of confining
pressure sensitivity on permeability as follows.
kil
DP ¼ (7)
k0
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 1 ; 1 4 : 1 2 0 8 e1 2 2 1
Fig. 7 e DP curve of confining pressure loading section.
where k0 is the initial permeability and kil is the permeability
of the ith stage under confining pressure loading, for which
values of i ¼ 1, 2, 3, and 4 correspond to confining pressures of
2.0 MPa, 3.5 MPa, 5.0 MPa, and 6.0 MPa, respectively.
As shown in Fig. 7, the DP curve shows a downward trend
with increasing confining pressure, which can be attributed to
the unequal initial damage caused in concrete by the different
loading magnitudes and ages. The existence of pores and
cracks in this initial damage are compacted step-by-step with
increasing confining pressure. Clearly, the overall decrease in
DP was the largest for C-1d-40, as was the slope of each
segment of the curve for this specimen. The results thus
indicate that the number of pores and cracks was the largest
for this specimen, so the confining pressure had the greatest
influence on the change in permeability. The results also show
that the initial damage caused by applying an external load of
40% of the strength at the time had the greatest influence after
1 day of curing. The overall decreases in DP for C-1d-10 and C-
3d-10 were lower than that for C-N-0, and when the confining
pressure was increased from 5.0 MPa to 6.5 MPa, the DP
changed very little for these specimens, indicating that the
number of pores and cracks that could be compressed inside
the specimen was extremely small. The initial damage caused
by an applied load of 10% of the strength at an early age was
observed to have less impact on the concrete DP than a 40%
applied load, and the later the age at which the external load
was applied, the smaller its adverse effect on DP. The change
in permeability according to applied confining pressure stage
can be divided according to DP: 2.0e5.0 MPa is the sensitive
area, in which the average DP was 61.43% and the attenuation
rate was the fastest; and 5.0e6.5 MPa is the insensitive area, in
which the average DP was 22.90% and the attenuation rate
was the slowest. This shows that the permeability of concrete
does not change uniformly with the increase in confining
pressure, and when the confining pressure is small, the
permeability decreases rapidly, then gradually slows, indi-
cating that the permeability of concrete is sensitive at the
initial stage and insensitive at the later stage to the increase in
confining pressure.
In order to more intuitively describe the permeability re-
covery under all levels of confining pressure during
1215
unloading, the attenuation dimensionless permeability
(ADP) is defined as:
kil  kiul
ADP ¼ (8)
kil
where kiul is the permeability of the ith stage under confining
pressure unloading, for which values of i ¼ 1, 2, and 3 corre-
spond to confining pressures of 2.0 MPa, 3.5 MPa, and 5.0 MPa,
respectively.
As can be observed in Fig. 8, the ADP tended to increase
during the gradual unloading of the confining pressure, cor-
responding to decreased permeability recovery performance
and indicating greater plastic deformation of the concrete
pore structure [51]. The analysis results thus demonstrate that
under low confining pressure, the pores and cracks in con-
crete were closed and strong plastic deformation occurred. As
a result, the ADP increased rapidly. Under high confining
pressure, the internal pores and cracks of the specimens were
all basically compacted, and the permeability reached a rela-
tively low value; however, there remained some fine pores in
the elastic deformation stage, so when the confining pressure
decreased, the permeability returned to its initial value, thus
decreasing the ADP. It can also be observed in Fig. 8 that the
ADPs of the specimens subjected to an applied load of 40% of
their compressive strength at either early age were signifi-
cantly higher than those of the other three specimens, and
that the earlier the external load was applied, the greater the
ADP. The results indicate that the internal pore structure of C-
1d-40 changed significantly, and that early age loading in-
creases the quantity and size of pores and cracks in the con-
crete, even causing them to connect with each other, so that
large plastic deformation of the pore structure occurs during
the later stages of applied confining pressure [52,53].
To compare the influence of different loading levels on the
permeability of concrete loaded at different ages, the
maximum permeability loss rate (MPLR) and permeability loss
rate (PLR) are used to evaluate the reduction in permeability
and the degree of recovery, respectively. The reduction in
concrete permeability is higher for a specimen with a higher
MPLR; the greater the PLR, the worse the recovery of concrete
Fig. 8 e ADP curve of confining pressure unloading section.
1216 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 1 ; 1 4 : 1 2 0 8 e1 2 2 1
permeability, and thus the greater the damage to the concrete
permeability.
The MPLR can be calculated by:
k0  kmin
MPLR ¼
k0
The PLR can be calculated by:
k0  kr
PLR ¼
k0
where kmin is the minimum permeability and kr is the
permeability under the minimum confining pressure during
unloading.
Table 4 shows that the MPLR and PLR of C-1d-40 were the
highest, followed by those of C-3d-40. It can be seen that
applying a 40% load at an early age had an adverse effect on
the development of the permeability of the specimens, and
the earlier the age of applied loading, the worse this effect. In
contrast, applying a 10% loading at an early age allowed the
specimens to be properly compacted, resulting in only a slight
reduction in MPLR and PLR.
4. Mechanism of concrete macroscopic
properties change under early age loading
4.1. Pore structure characteristics
The macroscopic characteristics of the concrete mechanical
property and permeability when subjected to the 10% and
40% early age loading were found to be relatively similar in
Sections 3.1 and 3.2, as they are closely related to the effect
of loading on the internal structure of the specimens.
Therefore, once the cylindrical samples were prepared, the
MacroMR12 large-diameter NMR instrument was used to
perform NMR tests to obtain the concrete pore distribution
curve after the early age loading and to observe the changes
in the pore structure inside the specimen. Notably, NMR
technology has the advantages of not damaging the spec-
imen, allowing it to be reused (in this case, in the subse-
quent mechanical and permeability tests) [54]. The T2
spectrum data obtained by NMR reflects the distribution of
the pore structure in the specimen, that is, the T2 value of
pore water reflects the structure of the internal water
environment [55,56]. The calculation principle used with
NMR is given by
1 S r
¼ rð Þ ¼ Fs
T2 V R
where R is the pore radius in um, r is the T2 surface relaxation
strength in um/ms, S is pore surface area in cm2, V is pore
volume in cm3, and Fs is the geometry factor. It can be
observed in Eq. (11) that T2 is proportional to the pore radius,
Table 4 e MPLR and PLR for each specimen group.
Specimen group C-N-0 C-1d-10 C-1d-40 C-3d-10 C-3d-40
MPLR 76.26% 69.40% 93.33% 64.61%
PLR 63.78% 52.16% 86.61% 44.98%
(9)
(10)
Fig. 9 e T2 spectrum distribution curve.
and that the signal amplitude reflects the number of pores
[56,57].
The T2 spectrum distribution curve is shown in Fig. 9, in
which three obvious peaks can be observed, defined from
right to left as Peak 1, Peak 2, and Peak 3. The higher the
amplitude of the peak, the greater the number of pores in
the concrete specimen, and the longer the relaxation time
of the peak, the larger the pore radius [57]. In Table 5, the
area under each peak of the T2 spectrum curves is reported
to characterize the pore water content. When the age of the
applied load was the same, the areas under Peak 1, Peak 2,
and Peak 3 increased with increasing load. The area under
Peak 3 with an applied load of 40% of the compressive
strength exhibited the largest increase compared to C-N-0,
indicating that the applied load was sufficiently large to
expand and connect the original small and medium pores
to form macropores. When load was applied at different
curing ages, the primary macropores were more compacted
when subjected to a 10% load level: the area under Peak 3
decreased by 64.01% and 35.54% when loaded after 1 day
and 3 days of curing, respectively, compared to C-N-0.
When subjected to the 40% load level, a later loading age
corresponded to a decreased speed of macropore structure
development from 168.74% (1 day) to 130.62% (3 day),
indicating that the earlier the loading age, the more
obvious the effect of loading on the development of mac-
ropores. In summary, the T2 spectrum distribution curve
indicates that early age loading changes the original pore
(11) structure of concrete, and the earlier the age and higher the
load level, the greater the impact of loading on the pore
structure.
As shown in Fig. 10, the pore size distribution curves of
the five specimen groups show three obvious peaks, again
defined from left to right as Peak 1, Peak 2, and Peak 3,
corresponding to pore size ranges of 0.005e0.030 mm (small
pores), 0.3e2.4 mm (mesopores), and 5e350 mm (macro-
pores), respectively. It should be noted that the internal
pore structure of the specimens measured by NMR was
mainly determined by the number of hydrogen ions in the
81.91% water molecules in the specimens. Not only can the pores
78.70% in the concrete store water, but cracks can as well, so the
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 1 ; 1 4 : 1 2 0 8 e1 2 2 1
Table 5 e Area of each peak in T2 spectrum.
Specimen group C-N-0
Peak 1 area (a.u.) 68.35
Peak 2 area (a.u.) 236.79
Peak 3 area (a.u.) 12,671.33
pore distribution determined using the NMR results should
be generalized in a broad sense [58,59]. It can be seen from
Fig. 10 that C-1d-40 showed the highest distribution in Peak
1, Peak 2, and Peak 3, indicating that there are many pores
in this specimen. Wu [60] pointed out that the more pores
there are in a specimen, the greater the impact of the initial
damage to the specimen on its permeability and mechani-
cal properties. Indeed, the initial permeability of C-1d-40
was the highest, and its mechanical properties decreased
the most. The proportion of small pores in Peak 1 of C-3d-
40 was the smallest, but relatively increased in Peaks 2 and
3; the proportion of macropores in Peak 3 was second only
to that of C-1d-40. This was much higher than that of the
remaining three specimen groups. Thus, the mesopores
and macropores were well developed, and the small pores
were compacted. Combined with the mechanical property
and permeability measurement results, it is believed that
an increase in the proportion of macropores in early age
loaded concrete significantly reduces the macroscopic per-
formance of the specimens. The proportions of mesopores
and macropores in C-1d-10 and C-3d-10 were close to or
even less than those in the reference specimen, while the
proportion of small pores was higher than that in the
reference specimen. This suggests that when a relatively
small load is applied at an early age, it is difficult to induce
the original pore and crack expansion, and thus the influ-
ence of the load is limited to the smallest pores. Mean-
while, it can be seen that the overall pore size distribution
of C-N-0 was very close to that of C-1d-10 and C-3d-10,
which also showed similar mechanical property charac-
teristics and permeability results in the macroscopic tests.
The internal pore structure of a concrete specimen there-
fore has an important influence on its macroscopic per-
formance [61,62].
Fig. 10 e Pore size distribution curve.
1217
C-1d-10 C-1d-40 C-3d-10 C-3d-40
74.46 97.60 72.77 85.54
267.07 339.97 262.29 308.03
4560.12 34,053.15 8161.56 29,222.22
4.2. The observation of concrete microstructure by SEM
To further clarify the effect of early age loading on the internal
structure of concrete, a FlexSEM1000 with acceleration voltage
of 0.3e20 kV and magnification of 55e300,000 was used to
observe the internal microstructure morphology of concrete
affected by early age loading according to the standard of SEM
[63]. In order to ensure the realization of the research purpose
and the representativeness of the object, the sampling of the
object scanned by SEM is the section when the specimens are
destroyed by uniaxial compression [26], and the sample size is
controlled at about 10 mm. The results of SEM show in Fig. 11,
it can be clearly seen that when the load applied at the early
age reaches 40% of the current concrete strength, the internal
microstructure has changed significantly, especially appeared
the large width connectivity cracks, at the same time, the
compactness of the cementitious structure is obviously
reduced, and there are some small cracks and holes on the
surface. The analysis suggests that this is due to the low
strength and unstable internal structure of concrete at an
early age, which leads to the formation of cracks, resulting in
changes in the internal microstructure causing a reduction in
late macroscopic properties, which is consistent with the
substantial reduction in mechanical and permeability prop-
erties in this study. When loading at 10%, it can be found that
the arrangement between the particles of the specimens is
relatively uniform and neat, the cementitious structure is
relatively tight, and there is almost no change compared with
the specimens of the benchmark group. In terms of macro-
scopic performance, the mechanical properties and perme-
ability of 10% early age loading are very close to those of the
benchmark group.
4.3. Effect mechanism of early age loading on internal
crack development of concrete
The macroscopic properties of concrete are closely related to
the development of its internal cracks. In this study, the me-
chanical properties and permeability of concrete changed
which must be related to the variation in the path of internal
cracks development after being subjected to different levels of
early age loading. As shown in Fig. 12, there is a big difference
in the development of the internal crack structure between
the two when the external loads of 10% and 40% of the
compressive strength of concrete are applied respectively at
the age of 1 day. Since the 10% external load is too small to
cause a great change in the initial cracking; while the 40% load
is 4 times higher than that of the 10%, and the early age con-
crete strength is low, the internal structure development is
extremely unstable, which easily makes the initial stress point
position of crack development decrease or even below 40% of
the peak strength. Therefore, it can be seen that the external
1218 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 1 ; 1 4 : 1 2 0 8 e1 2 2 1

Fig. 11 e Internal microstructure of concrete under early age loading (a) C-1d-10 (b) C-1d-40 (c) C-3d-10 (d) C-3d-40 (e) C-N-0.

load of 40% of the prevailing strength applied at 1 day can increased crack connectivity. When the early age load con-
cause significant changes in the internal crack structure, tinues to act for 14 days, the concrete continues to be cured
specifically in terms of more cracks, wider crack width, and without external load until 28 days. At this stage, the crack

Fig. 12 e Schematic diagram of effect of early age loading on crack development mode.
 j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s r e s e a r c h a n d t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 2 1 ; 1 4 : 1 2 0 8 e1 2 2 1
structure development after 28 days is improved because of
the self-healing ability of the concrete compared with the
stage of early age loading [64]. However, due to the high degree
of variation in crack development caused by 40% of the early
age loading, the self-healing performance of concrete was still
limited at 28 days. The overall crack development of concrete
subjected to early age loading at 3 days is basically the same as
that at 1 day age, the difference is that the internal structure of
concrete at 3 days is more stable compared to 1 day, and the
impact on crack development is relatively small, since both
the 1 day and 3 days are in the early age range, the difference
of the crack development between them is not particularly
large.
5. Conclusions
As it is becoming increasingly common for concrete structures
to bear loads at an early age during construction projects, the
changes in the mechanical property and permeability of con-
crete under different loads at different curing ages were
investigated in this study. A microscopic analysis of the inter-
nal pore structure changes was also conducted, and the rea-
sons for the observed variations in macroscopic performance
were thus determined. The following conclusions were ob-
tained from the results of this study.
(1) The magnitude of the load applied at an early age
should not exceed 40% of the compressive strength of
the concrete at that age, otherwise increasing numbers
of mesopores and macropores will develop in the con-
crete, significantly deteriorating its mechanical prop-
erty and permeability.
(2) Compared with the concrete that was not subjected to
early age loading, it was found that once concrete was
subjected to early age loading, the crack stress point
was delayed and the damage stress point was advanced
during the process of uniaxial compression. During
specimen failure, the macroscopic main cracks were
mainly caused by tensile failure, and the crack direction
was roughly parallel to the direction of loading.
(3) The permeability decreased during confining pressure
loading and recovered during confining pressure
unloading, however the degree of recovery was limited
regardless of whether or not the specimen was subjected
to early age loading. The dimensionless permeability,
attenuation dimensionless permeability, maximum
permeability loss rate, and permeability loss rate of
concrete specimens subjected to early age loading were
observed to change significantly with loading age and
magnitude. The application of 40% of the compressive
strength of concrete after 1 day of curing was observed to
cause the most adverse impact on concrete permeability.
(4) The internal structure of concrete affected by early age
loading was observed by NMR and SEM to master the
characteristics of internal pore structure development
and clarify the development of internal microstructure
morphology. The earlier age and the greater degree of
the load are applied, the internal damage of the speci-
mens will be more serious, such as obvious changes in
1219
the number, width and connectivity of cracks, and an
increase in the number of macropores, a decrease in the
compactness of cementitious structure, etc. These are
not conducive to the improvement of the macroscopic
properties of concrete. Therefore, the structure should
be prevented from being subjected to a large construc-
tion load prematurely in the construction process.
The results of this study are expected to serve as a refer-
ence for the improved design of concrete structures that will
be subjected to early age loading. Accurate design that con-
siders the effects of early age loading on the microscopic
characteristics and thus macroscopic behaviors of concrete
can ensure safe structures that perform as originally intended.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the Anhui Provincial Natural
Science Foundation Youth Project (1908085QE185), Independent
Research Fund of The State Key Laboratory of Mining Response
and Disaster Prevention and Control in Deep Coal Mines (Anhui
University of Science and Technology) (SKLMRDPC20ZZ05),
China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018M642502), National
Natural Science Foundation of China (51674006), National Col-
lege Students Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Pro-
gram (202010361023, S202110361046).
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