The influence of curing time on the

parameters of concrete: Concreting in hot

weather
Cite as: AIP Conference Proceedings 2210, 020001 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0000397
Published Online: 27 February 2020

Martin Alexa, Dalibor Kocáb, and Petr Žítt

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AIP Conference Proceedings 2210, 020001 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0000397 2210, 020001

© 2020 Author(s).
 The Influence of Curing Time on the Parameters of
Concrete: Concreting in Hot Weather
Martin Alexa1, a), Dalibor Kocáb1, b) and Petr Žítt1, c)
1
Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering, VeveĜí 331/95, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic.
a)
martin.alexa@vutbr.cz
b)
Corresponding author: dalibor.kocab@vutbr.cz
c)
petr.zitt@vutbr.cz

Abstract. Concreting in hot weather is usually very demanding. One of the most important aspects is correct curing of
the concrete. The crucial factor is not only quality but also the time of curing. Insufficient curing of concrete may result
in a decrease in its basic parameters, a decrease in the quality of the surface layer or a massive development of shrinkage
cracks. All this may have a very negative impact on the durability of the concrete structure. This paper is about the
influence of the concrete curing time on its compressive strength and on the modulus of elasticity. To determine the
modulus of elasticity, two non-destructive methods were used – ultrasonic pulse velocity test and resonance method –
and also a static test. The results presented show that the concrete curing time has a clear impact on its quality and it is,
therefore, not advisable to underestimate this aspect of summer concreting.

INTRODUCTION
Difficult climatic conditions during concreting have an adverse effect on the concrete setting and hardening. In
extreme conditions such as considerably freezing weather or tropical summer days, placement of concrete is not
recommended at all. If the circumstances do not enable postponing the concreting to a more suitable time, it is
necessary to take several measures. It is necessary to choose a suitable time of day (or night), modify the formula for
the concrete used and, above all, cure the concrete properly after the placement. Cold climate and temperatures
around 0°C or even below zero cause deceleration or even discontinuation of the hydration reactions. This leads to
a significant increase in the setting time of the concrete and, in extreme cases, when the concrete is exposed to frost
at an inappropriate time of its maturing, a decrease in its compressive strength by up to 40 % [1], [2].
Placement of concrete during hot months at high temperatures brings other problems, which can be partially
prevented by choosing a suitable concrete formula and by proper curing [3], [4], [5]. Naturally, high surrounding
temperatures and relative air humidity have a significant effect on concrete maturing. If high temperatures are joined
by strong wind, the concrete matures in extremely unsuitable conditions as the water evaporates very fast from the
surface. The fast massive loss of water causes excessive plastic shrinkage, which may cause the occurrence of
internal defects in the concrete structure, which has a negative impact on its durability [6]. Evaporation of mixing
water causes insufficient hydration of cement, which leads to a decrease in the strength of concrete. Hardening of
concrete due to cement hydration goes on for years after the placement if there are suitable conditions for it. Source
[7] states that for cement hydration, a minimum of 80% humidity is necessary.
Generally, we can say, that concrete curing is aimed at the uncovered parts of the structure exposed to the
climatic conditions. This action prevents massive evaporation of water and thus tries to keep the water necessary for
hydration in the material and to restrict plastic shrinkage. The most frequently used method of curing at high
temperatures is sprinkling of concrete after demoulding with water, often combined with covering the surface with
a plastic sheet or a textile sheet. When an absorbent material is used for the covering, the textile must be saturated
with water. Otherwise, a dry textile could absorb the water from the concrete surface. When the structure is exposed
to wind, barriers against wind are built. When it rains heavily, the concrete is covered with an impermeable plastic

Special Concrete and Composites 2019

AIP Conf. Proc. 2210, 020001-1–020001-5; https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0000397
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1961-2/$30.00

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sheet to prevent the cement paste from being washed off the surface. Another way of curing is applying a compound
on the surface, which stops the water from evaporating (protective spray on fresh concrete). These compounds are
usually water-based, when they react with the alkaline surface of the concrete, or they are solvent-based, when they
retain moisture in the concrete during the evaporation of their volatile component [8], [9], [10]. The curing time and
its impact on some selected parameters of concrete are the subject matter of this paper.

EXPERIMENT

Material and Test Specimens

For this experiment, 6 sets of concrete test specimens were produced. Their composition is shown in Tab. 1.
Each set contained 3 cubes of 150 mm and 3 prisms of 100×100×400 mm. After concreting, the test specimens were
stored in standard laboratory conditions and covered with PE foil. After 24 hours of the concrete maturing, all the
specimens were taken out of the moulds and randomly separated into the sets. Five sets of the test specimens
(15 cubes and 15 prisms) were stored in an environment with the relative humidity of air higher than 95 %.
An exception was the set labelled “1” – the specimens from this set were placed in a drying oven with forced
circulation of air. The drying oven simulated hot summer days so the temperature was set to 50 °C. Testing set “1”
therefore represented concrete which is cured for only one day after being placed in the summer. Two days after the
test specimens were produced, the second set, labelled “2”, was moved from the environment with the air humidity
higher than 95% into the drying oven. The test specimens of set “2” represented concrete cured for 2 days. This
procedure of moving the set of test specimens into the drying oven was repeated on the 3rd, 6th, and 10th day after
the concreting, where the sets were labelled “3”, “6”, and “10” by the given convention. The last set was left in the
conditions with the air humidity higher than 95% for 28 days – they were reference specimens labelled “REF”.

Test Specimens
The tests specimens for the experiment were produced as part of an extensive concreting work. The specimens
were cylinders with the diameter of 150 mm and height of 50 mm and cubes with the dimension of 150 mm.
Cylinders were used for the method C and cubes for the method A. A total of 8 cylinders were produced, of which
four were REF and four BOT. The method C could also include tests of the surface created by a cut, however, the
small height of the test cylinder (50 mm) did not allow it as the cut-off part of the cylinder would be too small.
There were a total of 15 cubes designated for the tests. Tests of the surfaces REF, BOT and SIDE were carried out
on three cubes for each surface. Five centimetre thick slices were cut from additional three cubes (the cut was
parallel to the direction of concrete compaction) and the test was conducted on the cut surface of the specimen
150×150×100 mm – specimens designated CUT. The last three cubes were coated with Chemoprén glue. The
composition of the concrete is given in Tab. 1.

TABLE 1. Composition of the concrete used in the experiment.

Component Amount in kg / 1 m3 of fresh concrete
Cement CEM I 42.5 R 270
Fine aggregate 0-4 mm 870
Coarse aggregate 4-8 mm 225
Coarse aggregate 8-16 mm 850
Water 160
Plasticising admixture 0.68
Workability enhancing admixture 1.55

Testing Method
The determination of the selected properties of the concrete took place when it was 28 days old. As was
mentioned before, the aim of the experiment was to determine the influence of the curing time on the compressive
strength of concrete and on the dynamic and static compressive moduli of elasticity. First, the compressive strength
of concrete, fc, was determined for all the 18 cube-shaped test specimens in compliance with the EN 12390-3

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standard [11]. Then, the dynamic modulus of elasticity, Ecu, was determined for all the 18 test prisms using the
ultrasonic pulse velocity test and EcrL using the resonance method.
Using an ultrasonic device with 150 kHz frequency probes, the time of ultrasonic waves passing through the
concrete was measured for each prism. The measuring was carried out in three lines parallel to the longitudinal axis
of the specimen (in the cross section the measuring lines were placed on the diagonal). Based on the results of the
measurements the velocity of the ultrasonic pulses was determined, using which the modulus of elasticity, Ecu, was
then calculated. The measurements and evaluations of the results obtained using the ultrasonic pulse velocity test
were carried out in compliance with the ýSN 73 1371 standard [12]. After the ultrasonic measurement, the first
natural frequency of longitudinal vibration was determined for all the test prisms, see Fig. 1 on the left.
A four-channel oscilloscope with an acoustic emission sensor was used for the measuring and the natural frequency
was determined using software which works on the principle of fast Fourier transform and which is supplied with
the oscilloscope. The value of the first natural frequency of longitudinal vibration was used to calculate EcrL in
compliance with the ýSN 73 1372 standard [13]. The static compressive modulus of elasticity, Ec, (see Fig. 1 on the
right) was determined in compliance with the ISO 1920-10 standard [14]. Cyclic loading of the test prisms was
carried out in the ALPHA 3-3000 S compression machine, where the lower load level was in accordance with [14]
0.5 MPa and the upper load level (1/3 of the assumed compressive strength of the prism) was selected individually
for each set of the test specimens based on the results of the cubic compressive strength and non-destructively
determined parameters. Deformation was measured using electronic strain transducer which are among the
accessories to the compression machine and the result, Ec, was obtained using the Proteus software (also part of the
accessories to the compression testing machine).

FIGURE 1. Measuring using the resonance method (on the left), measuring the static modulus of elasticity (on the right).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The results are shown graphically in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3. Figure 2 shows the average values of the compressive
strength of concrete, completed with error bar expressing the sample standard deviation. The average compressive
strength of concrete for the reference set is 28.1 MPa. The lowest compressive strength was, as expected, achieved
by the concrete of set “1”, which was cured for the shortest period of time – the average value is 20.1 MPa. As
expected, the increase in the compressive strength of concrete is proportional to the length of curing, which can be
clearly seen in the bar chart (Fig. 2), to the extent that the cubes cured for 10 days show the highest strength
(31.1 MPa). The test specimens cured for 6 days show the same strength as the reference concrete. The relative
results related to the reference set are shown in Tab. 2.
The situation regarding the dynamic and static moduli of elasticity is completely different (Fig. 3). The average
value Ec for the reference set is 24.7 GPa; for the dynamic modulus of elasticity Ecu and EcrL the average value
exceeds 30 GPa. The average value of any of the moduli of elasticity measured does not exceed 25 GPa for any
other set of the testing prisms. A completely different trend of the influence of the curing time discovered for the

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compressive strength and the modulus of elasticity can be clearly seen in Tab. 2, which shows the relative results
related to the reference set. While the compressive strength of the concrete cured for ten days reached 110 % of the
reference concrete, the value of the modulus of elasticity barely reached over 75 %.

FIGURE 2. The compressive strength of concrete fc depending on curing time.

FIGURE 3. Dynamic moduli of elasticity Ecu, EcrL and static modulus of elasticity Ec depending on curing time.

TABLE 2. Relative average values of the parameters of the concrete in each set related to the reference set.
Set of test specimens
Property
1 2 3 6 10 REF
Compressive strength fc 71.6 80.7 85.3 100.2 110.7 100.0
Dynamic modulus of elasticity Ecu 61.2 64.8 69.0 71.8 76.0 100.0
Dynamic modulus of elasticity EcrL 59.4 63.2 64.9 69.0 77.0 100.0
Static modulus of elasticity Ec 65.9 69.0 70.9 75.5 76.1 100.0

However, it is not a surprising result. Microcracks, which certainly developed in the internal structure of the
concrete that was cured for only a short time, do not affect the compressive strength very much. However, they
significantly affect the modulus of elasticity – for this very reason, one of the criteria for assessing the frost
resistance of concrete (during this test internal structure defects occur) is a decrease in its modulus of elasticity, not

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a decrease in its compressive strength [15]. Moreover, regarding the compressive strength of concrete, it is generally
true that dried out concrete (essentially sets “1” to “10”) achieves better results than saturated concrete (essentially
the “REF” set). This is caused by the water, which is almost incompressible, and thus it creates high stress in the
inner structure of the concrete during the test – therefore it basically breaks the concrete from the inside. It is quite
the contrary regarding the modulus of elasticity – dried out concrete shows lower values of the modulus of elasticity
than saturated concrete [16,17].

CONCLUSION
Based on the experiment carried out, we can say that the influence of the concrete curing time in the summer on
its parameters over 28 days was proved. When the temperatures are tropical, the boundary concrete curing time
appears to be a week (6 days here). This kind of concrete achieves similar compressive strengths as the reference
concrete and its modulus of elasticity achieves approximately 70 % of the reference value. This may be considered
a sufficient result with regard to the concept of the tests (the concrete cured was tested being almost dried out
whereas the reference concrete was almost fully saturated). It must also be pointed out that this paper only describes
a pilot experiment which monitored the influence of the curing time on concrete property values of only 28 days.
Insufficient curing over a longer period of time would probably have an even stronger effect.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This paper has been written as a part of project No. FAST-S-19-6002, supported by Brno University of
Technology.

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