Early Stage Compressive Strength of Self Curing Concrete Enhanced with Polyethylene Glycol

Curing is the process of wetting concrete in order to get required strength and durability in concrete. However, satisfactory curing is not possible at everywhere. Therefore, Self curing method was adopted in order to complete water demand of concrete and many researchers attracted to work on self curing agents such as Lightweight Aggregate (LWA) (natural and synthetic, expanded shale), Super-absorbent Polymers (SAP), and shrinkage reducing agent i.e., PEG (polyethylene glycol), polyvinyl alcohol, Paraffin Wax, Acrylic acid. The object of this research was to investigate the effect polyethylene glycol peg-400 as self curing agent. In order to check the effect of Polyethylene Glycol PEG-400 on concrete, a mix of 21 MPa was designed using Doe Mix designed method. Therefore, 8 mixes were prepared with varying percentage of PEG-400 (0.25%,0.5%,0.75, 1%, 1.25%, 1.5%,1.75%, 2%)by weight of cement) and there compressive strength tested at time interval of 3 days. It was found that the optimum dosage for achieving maximum strength for 21 MPa was 1.5% of PEG-400 (by weight of cement).Compressive strength of concrete using PEG-400 increased by 12.5 % as compared to conventional concrete.