Construction and Building Materials 201 (2019) 72–80

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Construction and Building Materials

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

Assessing the effect of GGBS content and aggregate characteristics on

drying shrinkage of roller compacted concrete
Sorabh Saluja a,⇑, Kulwinder Kaur a, Shweta Goyal a, Bishwajit Bhattacharjee b
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala 147 004, India
b
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, HauzKhas, New Delhi 110 016, India

h i g h l i g h t s

Shrinkage strain of RCC with coarse aggregate variation and GGBS are studied.

Mixes having limestone aggregate experience lesser shrinkage strain than crushed gravel.

Multi-regression model is developed to predict shrinkage strain for RCC.

High correlation coefficient proves the effectiveness of developed model for RCC mixes.

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

Article history: Roller compacted concrete (RCC) has gained acceptance as a paving material due to its strength, economy
Received 21 August 2018 and fast placement. In this paper, variation in aggregate type and influence of GGBS on drying shrinkage
Received in revised form 21 December 2018 properties of RCC was explored. The experimental results indicate that crushed gravel aggregates pre-
Accepted 25 December 2018
sents higher shrinkage strain as compared to limestone. Also, the shrinkage strain of RCC increased with
the increase in replacement level of cement with GGBS. Further, a multivariable regression model is
developed for shrinkage strain prediction of RCC, considering the effect of aggregate type and percentage
Keywords:
incorporation of GGBS on the shrinkage behaviour. The obtained higher correlation coefficient indicates
Roller compacted concrete
Drying shrinkage strain
that the developed model can be effectively used to predict the shrinkage strain of RCC.
Aggregate characteristics Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
GGBS
Multi regression model

1. Introduction
Roller compacted concrete (RCC) is a dry concrete that exhibits
zero slump and gained popularity because of economy, strength
and fast placement [1,2]. RCC has gained acceptance as a pavement
material because it does not require formwork, reinforcing steel
and dowel bars, and thus economizes the overall construction cost
of the pavement. The cost saving of upto 60% can be achieved by
using RCC pavements as compared to the conventional concrete
pavements [3,4]. The basic ingredients of the RCC are similar with
the conventional concrete although the proportioning of these
ingredients varies. RCC requires larger proportion of sand, lesser
water and lower cement content on comparison with the conven-
tional concrete. Previous studies show that RCC is a strong and dur-
able material for pavements, with strength even greater than the
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: sai1983saluja@gmail.com, civilsorabh@yahoo.co.in (S. Saluja),
kulwinder_kaur@thapar.edu (K. Kaur), shweta@thapar.edu (S. Goyal), bishwa@civil.
iitd.ac.in (B. Bhattacharjee).
conventional concrete pavements [4–7]. Since the RCC mixes are
widely used in pavements so drying shrinkage becomes an essen-
tial parameter for its acceptability.
Drying shrinkage is defined as the volumetric shrinkage of con-
crete, because of loss of moisture during drying with time [8]. This
volumetric change introduces tensile stress in concrete ultimately
leading to cracking of RCC pavements. Shrinkage cracks adversely
affect the pavement surface with decrease in durability and
increase in roughness of pavements. Pittman and Ragan [9]
reported that the grading of aggregates and the moisture content
of the mix has great influence on drying shrinkage of RCC. It was
reported that coarse aggregates characteristics such as quantity,
type, surface texture, moisture content as well as supplementary
cementitious materials play an important role in controlling
shrinkage behaviour of conventional concrete [8,10–12].
Till date, extensive research which accounts the effect of coarse
aggregates characteristics on shrinkage behaviour was focused on
the conventional concrete [11–14]. For instance, Al-Attar T.S. [11]
reported that limestone aggregates present lesser shrinkage strain

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2018.12.179
0950-0618/Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.