Characterisation of autogenous shrinkage in Australian concrete

Raymond Ian Gilbert1, Arnaud Castel2, Inamullah Khan3, James Mohammadi4 and Warren South5
1
Emeritus Professor, 2 Associate Professor, 3 Research Associate,
Centre for Infrastructure Engineering and Safety, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
UNSW Australia, Sydney, NSW, Australia
4
Research Engineer, 5 Director of research and technical services
Cement Concrete Aggregates Australia

Abstract: Shrinkage of concrete is the time-dependent strain in an unloaded and unrestrained

specimen at constant temperature. It is usually considered to be the sum of drying shrinkage and
autogenous shrinkage. Drying shrinkage is the reduction in volume caused principally by the loss of
water during the drying process and this continues perhaps for years after the concrete is cast.
Autogenous shrinkage results from various chemical reactions within the cement paste and occurs in
the first days and weeks after casting. The standard Australian procedure for measuring shrinkage of
concrete is outlined in AS1012.13 (1) and involves measuring the total shrinkage strain in a concrete
prism between ages 7 days and 56 days under a specified controlled environment. This fails to
account for the autogenous shrinkage that occurs within the first 7 days, and it is restraint to this early
shrinkage that frequently leads to early-age cracking. The method is also inconsistent with the
approach specified in AS3600-2009 (2) for quantifying autogenous and drying shrinkage separately.
This paper describes an experimental investigation of shrinkage in Australian concretes jointly
undertaken by UNSW and CCAA. The investigation involves the development of a reliable
experimental method for measuring autogenous shrinkage and then uses the method to quantify the
autogenous shrinkage in a range of Australian concretes. To date the test data indicates that
autogenous shrinkage is underestimated in Australian Standard AS3600-2009 (2). Based on the test
data, modifications of the existing expressions for autogenous and drying shrinkage are proposed.

Keywords: Autogenous shrinkage, cracking, drying shrinkage, early-age concrete, laboratory tests,
tensile creep.

1. Introduction
The effects of shrinkage on the performance of concrete structures are invariably detrimental.
Shrinkage causes losses of prestress, axial shortening and rotations of concrete members that may
result in excessive deflection. Restraint to shrinkage induces tension in concrete and the resulting
cracks, if not controlled, can lead to serviceability, durability and even shear strength failures.
Restraint to early-age shrinkage of concrete is arguably the most common cause of unsightly cracking
in concrete structures and the repair of such cracks results in high annual costs to the construction
industry. Despite its significance, the magnitude and rate of development of early-age shrinkage of
Australian concretes remains to be adequately quantified and test methods for measuring shrinkage in
the first seven days after casting the concrete have been hitherto unavailable.
Shrinkage of concrete is the time-dependent strain in an unloaded and unrestrained specimen at
constant temperature. Shrinkage strain cs is usually considered to be the sum of a drying shrinkage
component csd and an autogenous (or chemical) shrinkage component cse. Drying shrinkage is the
reduction in volume caused principally by the loss of water during the drying process. It begins at the
end of moist curing, as soon as the concrete begins to dry and increases with time at a gradually
decreasing rate in the months and years after setting. The magnitude and rate of development of
drying shrinkage depend on all the factors that affect the drying of concrete, including the relative
humidity, the size and shape of the member and the mix characteristics, in particular, the type and
quantity of the binder, the water content and water-to-cement ratio, the ratio of fine-to-coarse
aggregate, and the volume and type of aggregate. All else being equal, drying shrinkage increases
when the water-cement ratio increases, the relative humidity decreases and the ratio of the exposed
surface area to volume increases. The aggregate in concrete provides restraint to shrinkage of the
cement paste, so that an increase in the aggregate content reduces shrinkage. Shrinkage is also
smaller when stiffer aggregates are used
Autogenous shrinkage results from various chemical reactions within the cement paste and includes
hydration shrinkage, which is related to the degree of hydration of the binder in a sealed specimen
with no moisture exchange. It begins to occur in the hardened concrete soon after first set, increasing
at a decreasing rate over the following days and weeks. For normal strength concrete, autogenous
shrinkage is essentially complete after about 50 days, but for high strength concrete it may continue to
develop over several months. Autogenous shrinkage is less dependent on the environment and the
size of the specimen than drying shrinkage. Autogenous shrinkage increases as the cement content
increases and the water-cement ratio decreases, but it is not significantly affected by the ambient
relative humidity. There is no standard test to measure the autogenous shrinkage in concrete.
If shrinkage of concrete was free to occur, without restraint, it would not cause cracking and it would
not be a major concern to structural engineers. However, this is not the case. Restraint in one form or
another almost always occurs. Restraint involves the imposition of a gradually increasing tensile force
on the concrete. Although relieved by tensile creep of the concrete, the restraining force may lead to
cracking (in previously uncracked regions), increases in curvature (and hence deflection in beams and
slabs) and a widening of existing cracks. Early-age cracking due to restrained shrinkage can only be
avoided if the gradually increasing tensile stress induced by restraint, and reduced by creep, is at all
times less than the tensile strength of the concrete. Although the tensile strength of concrete increases
with time, so too does the elastic modulus and, therefore, so too does the tensile stress induced by
restraint. Furthermore, the relief offered by creep decreases with age. The mechanism is complex and
the ability to accurately model the restraint, as well as the material properties and deformation
characteristics, is essential to control cracking.
Notwithstanding, the complications introduced by creep and the loss of stiffness caused by cracking,
techniques are available to determine the magnitude and location of the restraining force when the
restraint is in the form of bonded reinforcement, or if full or partial restraint is provided at the ends of a
structural member so as to prevent its free shortening or when the restraint is provided along one or
more edges of a slab or wall, see References (3) to (10). In all these situations, an accurate
knowledge of the early-age shrinkage is essential for reliable and satisfactory design outcomes.
For the design of concrete structures in Australia, structural engineers rely on the existing predictive
models for autogenous and drying shrinkage in AS3600-2009 (2). These models were originally
developed by Gilbert in 2002 (11) and were based on the limited test data available at that time.
Recent test on modern Australian concrete mixes undertaken at UNSW and the concrete supplier
members of CCAA (see References 12 and 13) have revealed inaccuracies in the AS3600 models.
They have also highlighted the difficulties in relating test data from concrete drying shrinkage tests
carried out in accordance with the AS1012.13 (1) to the design shrinkage strain calculated using
AS3600-2009. Similar difficulties arise when comparing measured shrinkage with other overseas
predictive models, such as that in Eurocode 2 (14). The existing methods take no account of cement
type or the effect of mineral additions, and accurate estimates of early-age autogenous and early-age
drying shrinkage are not available. There is some evidence to suggest that autogenous shrinkage
increases as the amount of silica fume or ground blast-furnace slag increases and that it decreases
with the inclusion of fly-ash (15, 16, 17). However, the effects of these inclusions on the magnitude
and rate of development of both autogenous and drying shrinkage at early-ages have not yet been
quantified. Through a carefully conducted series of shrinkage tests in a controlled environment, the
missing data for a wide range of local concrete mixes and local climatic conditions is being gathered at
UNSW. Some preliminary results are presented here and the development of a reliable procedure for
measuring autogenous shrinkage is outlined.

2. Measurement of autogenous and drying shrinkage

In Australia, shrinkage is traditionally measured on 75 mm  75 mm  280 mm concrete prisms between
the ages of 7 and 56 days in a standard test outlined in AS 1012.13 (1). The standard test purports to
measure drying shrinkage, but in fact it measures the total shrinkage (drying plus autogenous shrinkage)
that occurs in a specimen that has been kept saturated for the first 7 days after casting. This fails to
account for the autogenous shrinkage that occurs within the first 7 days, and it is restraint to this early
shrinkage that frequently leads to early-age cracking. There is no standard test to measure the
autogenous shrinkage in concrete and there is no standard test to measure drying shrinkage.
The standard drying shrinkage test for concrete can be modified to capture early age volume change
by elimination of the 7 day curing period and beginning measurements as early as possible. Some
prisms may also be sealed after casting to eliminate drying and provide a measurement of autogenous
shrinkage. The surfaces of the autogenous shrinkage specimens should be sealed as quickly as
possible to eliminate loss of moisture. In the present study, standard shrinkage prisms were cast in
steel moulds and demolded no later than 24 hours after casting. For the autogenous shrinkage
specimens, immediately after demoulding, all faces of the specimen were sealed by continuously
wrapping with self-adhesive aluminium foil. To ensure complete sealing of the specimen, aluminium
 32 MPa

80 MPa

32 MPa
80 MPa

 
 
 
Figure 1. Autogenous shrinkage Figure 2. Autogenous shrinkage and weight loss vs.
test with foil wrapped time for 32 MPa and 80 MPa concrete.
prism and comparator.

foil with thick butyl rubber adhesive coating was used. A photograph of a suitably sealed specimen
mounted in a vertical comparator is shown in Figure 1. Typical results of autogenous shrinkage in 32 MPa
and an 80 MPa concrete mixes are shown in Figure 2a and the effectiveness of the aluminium seal in
eliminating loss of water is illustrated in Figure 2b. With the autogenous shrinkage cse measured on
the sealed specimens and the total shrinkage cs measured on the unsealed specimens, the drying
shrinkage cd is obtained by subtracting one from the other, i.e. csd = cs - cse.

3. Experimental program
To date, autogenous and total shrinkage strains have been measured over a period in excess 100
days on sealed and unsealed prisms for two different concretes, Mix 1 with a nominal
compressive strength of 32 MPa and Mix 2 with a nominal compressive strength of 80 MPa. All
shrinkage prisms were moist cured for 24 hours before readings commenced and then kept in an
environmental chamber with controlled temperature, humidity and air circulation throughout the
period of testing. The temperature in the environmental chamber was maintained at 23 ±1°C for
90% of each 24 h period, at all times remaining within the range 23 ±2°C. The relative humidity in
the chamber was maintained at 50 ±5% at all times. Details of the concrete mix proportions are
given in Table 1.
A sufficient number of cylinders and prisms were cast and tested to determine the compressive
strength at the ages of 7 and 28 days and elastic modulus at the age of 28 days. Three specimens
were tested at each age in order to assess the statistical variation of each material property and this
practice was repeated for each concrete batch. Compressive strength and elastic modulus tests
were conducted on cylinders in accordance with AS 1012.9 (2014). Compressive strength tests
were performed on cylinders kept in ambient curing conditions in the laboratory and on cylinders
subjected to the curing conditions outlined in the Standard. Elastic modulus tests were performed on
cylinders cured under standard conditions. The statistical variation of each mechanical characteristic
of concrete tested for both batches was less than 9%. The concrete mechanical properties are
presented in Table 2.
Table 1. Concrete mix proportions

Mix 1: 30 MPa Mix 2: 80 MPa

Binder:
SL Cement/ Fly Ash/GGBFS (kg/m3) 288/72/0 450/60/75
Coarse aggregate:
20 mm/10 mm (kg/m3) 749/277 0/920
Fine aggregate:
Manufactured sand/fine sand(kg/m3) 545/245 391/335
Admixtures:
Retarder/superplasticiser (ml/m3) 360/990 1170/3200
Water: 185 170
Unit mass (kg/m3) 2361 2401
Water-binder ratio 0.51 0.29

Table 2. Mechanical properties.

Compressive Strength (MPa) Elastic Modulus (GPa)

7 days 28 days 28 days
Ambient curing Standard curing Ambient curing Standard curing Standard curing
Mix 1 22.5 24 27.5 33.5 34
Mix 2 56 60 75 83 43

For each concrete mix, shrinkage strains were recorded on three unsealed specimens and three
sealed specimens. For each group of three identical samples, the readings at each particular time
were averaged. For each group, individual readings at all times differed from the group mean by less
than 11%. The mean shrinkage readings for each mix are presented in Table 3, where the values for
autogenous shrinkage ca are the measurements from the sealed prisms, the total shrinkage cs is the
measured shrinkage in the unsealed prisms and the drying shrinkage cd is calculated as cs - ca.
Additional testing has commenced on a full range of commercial mix designs with concrete grade
ranging from 25 MPa to 100 MPa to quantify the effects on shrinkage of binder content and type,
water cement ratio, admixtures type, and aggregate type and volume.

Table 3. Measured shrinkage strains (x 10-6).

Time Mix 1: 30 MPa Time Mix 2: 80 MPa

(days after Autogen- Drying, Total, (days after Autogen- Drying, Total,
casting) ous, ca cd cs casting) ous, ca cd cs
1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
2 -13 -49 -63 2 -53 -35 -88
3 -27 -80 -107 3 -83 -76 -159
4 -33 -104 -137 4 -97 -105 -203
5 -35 -146 -180 7 -140 -151 -291
7 -45 -168 -213 14 -207 -180 -387
10 -60 -240 -300 28 -264 -259 -523
14 -72 -289 -361 56 -311 -327 -637
21 -96 -340 -436 105 -345 -323 -668
28 -117 -343 -460
42 -124 -371 -495
56 -133 -395 -528
120 -150 -445 -595
4. Discussion of results
The experimental program was initiated because shrinkage measurements made in standard 56 day
tests by concrete suppliers across Australia (Mohammadi et al., 2016) indicated that the provisions in
the Australian Standard for Concrete Structures AS3600-2009 and in Eurocode 2 (2004) significantly
and consistently underestimate the autogenous shrinkage of Australian concrete. The test results
obtained to date in this program support this conclusion. Mohammadi et al. (2016) presented results
from over 2700 standard shrinkage tests on concretes ranging from 20 MPa to 100 MPa in which
specimens were kept saturated for 7 days before drying commenced. The total shrinkage measured in
such specimens does not include the autogenous shrinkage that develops in the first seven days after
casting. For example, for the tests on 80 MPa mixes reported by Mohammadi et al., the average total
shrinkage after 56 days of drying was -565  (compared to the -637  reported in Table 3).
Comparisons between the autogenous, drying and total shrinkage reported in Table 3 are compared in
Figure 3 with predictions made using the provisions of AS3600-2009 and Eurocode 2 (2004).

Mix 1: 30 MPa Mix 2: 80 MPa
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
autogenous shrinkage ()

autogenous shrinkage ()
0 Age (days) 0 Age (days)
‐50 ‐50
‐100 ‐100
‐150 ‐150
‐200 ‐200
‐250 Tests ‐250
‐300 AS3600-2009 ‐300
‐350 Eurocode 2 ‐350
‐400 ‐400
  
(a) Autogenous shrinkage versus time

Mix 1: 30 MPa Mix 2: 80 MPa
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
0 Age (days) 0 Age (days)
drying shrinkage ()
drying shrinkage ()

‐100 ‐100
‐200 ‐200
‐300 ‐300
‐400 ‐400 Tests
‐500 ‐500 AS3600-2009
‐600 ‐600 Eurocode 2
‐700 ‐700
(b) Drying shrinkage versus time  

Mix 1: 30 MPa Mix 2: 80 MPa
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
0 Age (days) 0 Age (days)
Total shrinkage ()
Total shrinkage ()

‐100 ‐100
Tests
‐200 ‐200
‐300 AS3600-2009 ‐300
‐400 Eurocode 2 ‐400
‐500 ‐500
‐600 ‐600
‐700 ‐700
‐800 ‐800
(c) Total shrinkage versus time  

Figure 3. Comparisons between measured and predicted shrinkage strains.

Figure 3a indicates that both standards very significantly underestimate the autogenous shrinkage
measured in the concretes tested here. AS3600-2009 overestimated the drying shrinkage for the 32
MPa mix, whereas Eurocode 2 provided close agreement (Figure 3b). For the 80 MPa mix, however,
AS3600-2009 closely matched the drying shrinkage test data, but Eurocode 2 underestimated drying
shrinkage. With regard to total shrinkage, AS3600-2009 overestimated the test data for the 32 MPa
mix by about 20%, but Eurocode 2 underestimated the data by a similar percentage. For the high
strength 80 MPa mix, both standards underestimated the total shrinkage, AS3600-2009 by 23% and
Eurocode 2 by 41%.
Significantly, the measured total shrinkage in the 80 MPa mix was higher than the total shrinkage of
the 32 MPa mix. This has significant implications when considering shrinkage induced cracking in
restrained structures. The tensile stresses that develop in concrete due to restrained shrinkage is
significantly higher in high strength concrete due to its higher elastic modulus and lower tensile creep
coefficients compared to low strength concrete. Cracking may occur in high strength concrete at early
ages, despite its higher early-age tensile strength. Reliable data for these early age properties of
concrete in tension are not widely available and this makes difficult the task of designing concrete
structures for crack control, particularly for the control of early-age thermal and shrinkage cracking.
In the appendix, a minor adjustment to the equations provided in AS3600-2009 (2) for estimating
autogenous and drying shrinkage is proposed to better predict shrinkage across the range of concrete
strengths.

5. Conclusions
This paper describes an experimental investigation of the autogenous and drying shrinkage of Australian
concrete. A reliable experimental method for measuring autogenous shrinkage is proposed and used to
quantify the autogenous shrinkage in concretes of strengths ranging from 30MPa to 80 MPa. To date the
test data indicates that autogenous shrinkage is underestimated in both the Australian Standard and
Eurocode 2. Modifications of the existing expressions for autogenous shrinkage specified in the
Eurocode 2 are also proposed to better predict the autogenous shrinkage of modern Australian concrete
mixes.

Acknowledgement
The financial support of Cement Concrete Aggregates Australia and the Australian Research Council
(Discovery Project DP130102966) is gratefully acknowledged.

6. References

1. AS 1012.13-2015. Methods of testing concrete – Determination of the drying shrinkage of concrete

for samples prepared in the field or in the laboratory. Standards Australia: Sydney. 2015.
2. AS 3600-2009. Australian standard for concrete structures. Standards Australia: Sydney. 2009.
3. Gilbert RI and Ranzi G (2010). Time-Dependent Behaviour of Concrete Structure. Spon Press -
Taylor & Francis Group, London, 426 p.
4. Gilbert RI (1992). Shrinkage Cracking in Fully-Restrained Concrete Members, Structural Journal
of the American Concrete Institute, 89(2): 141-149.
5. Nejadi S and Gilbert RI (2004). Shrinkage Cracking and Crack Control in Restrained Reinforced
Concrete Members, ACI Structural Journal, 101(6): 840-845.
6. Gilbert, RI (2015). Shrinkage and early-age temperature induced cracking and crack control in
concrete structures, Second International Conference on Performance-based and life-cycle
structural engineering (PLSE2015), Brisbane, December.
7. Gilbert. RI, Papworth F and Paull R (2017). Recommended Practice – Concrete Durability Series
– Z7/06 Concrete cracking and crack control, in- press, Concrete Institute of Australia.
8. Bamforth P.B. (2007). Early-age thermal crack control in concrete. CIRIA C660.
9. Bamforth PB, Denton S and Shave J (2009). A new approach for the design of reinforcement to
control cracking resulting from continuous edge restraint to contraction. Proceedings, 11th Annual
International fib Symposium, London, June.
10. Alexander SJ and Bamforth PB (2009). A coordinated view of restraint factors. Proceedings, 11th
Annual International fib Symposium, London, June.
11. Gilbert RI (2002). Creep and shrinkage models for high strength concrete - Proposals for inclusion
in AS3600. Australian Journal of Structural Engineering, Engineers Australia, 4(2): 95-106.
12. Thomas WA, Mohammadi J and South W (2015). A discussion on the autogenous shrinkage
interpretation from the experimental shrinkage measurement based on the Australian testing
procedure AS 1012.13. Concrete 2015, 27th Biennial National Conference of the Concrete
Institute of Australia, Melbourne, August.
13. Mohammadi J, South W and Thomas T (2016). An investigation on the correlation of AS1012.13
test results and AS3600 shrinkage prediction, Cement Concrete & Aggregates Australia.
14. EN 1992-1-1 (2004). Design of concrete structures Part 1-1: General rules and rules for buildings.
Eurocode 2. Brussels. European Committee for Standardisation.
15. Malhotra V.M. and Ramezanianpour A.A. (1994). Fly Ash in Concrete. 2nd Edition, CANMET.
16. Bamforth P.B. (1980). Insitu measurement of the effect of partial Portland cement replacement
using either fly ash or ground granulated blast-furnace slag on the performance of mass concrete.
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Part 2, September, pp 777-800.
17. Barnes, R., Papworth F., Ward W., and O’Daniel, J. (2015). Temperature Monitoring of Concrete
Elements for Insitu Strength Measurement and Prevention of Damage from Heat of Hydration.
Concrete 2015, 27th Biennial National Conference of the Concrete Institute of Australia, Melbourne.

APPENDIX – PROPOSED MODIFICATION TO AS3600-2009

Figure 3 indicates that the existing model in AS3600-2009 (2) underestimates the autogenous shrinkage
in both concrete mixes examined here and overestimate drying shrinkage in the 32 MPa mix. These
finding agree with the general findings obtained by Mohammadi et al. (13) in a survey conducted across
Australia, in which the mean values obtained for total shrinkage in standard 56 day shrinkage tests in
concrete ranging from 20 MPa to 100 MPa are as shown in Table A.1.

Table A.1. Mean total shrinkage strains at 56 days measure in over 2700 standard tests (13).

Concrete strength Grade 20 25 32 40 50 65 80 100

Measured shrinkage () 688 610 574 586 578 585 565 511

The existing expressions in AS3600-2009 (2) for the autogenous shrinkage strain cse(t) at any time t
after casting is the product of a time function (1.0  e 0.1t ) (varying from zero at t = 0 to unity at t = )
and the final autogenous shrinkage strain  cse*
 (0.06 f c'  1)  50  10 6 . The following modifications are
proposed:

 cse   cse
*

 1.0  e 0.07 t  (A.1)
where
 cse
*
 (0.07 f c'  0.5)  50  10 6 for f c'  50 MPa (A.2a)
'
 cse
*
 (0.08 f c'  1)  50  106 for fc > 50 MPa (A.2b)

At any time t (in days) after the commencement of drying, the drying shrinkage strain in
AS3600-2009 is  csd  k1 k 4 csd.b , where k 1 describes the rate of development of shrinkage with
time and depends on the hypothetical thickness, k 4 depends on the environment, csd.b is the
basic drying shrinkage (  csd.b  1.0  0.008 f c    csd.b
*
) and  csd.b
*
depends on the quality of the local
aggregates and equals 800  10 6 for Sydney and Brisbane, 900  10 6 for Melbourne, Brisbane
and Perth and 1000  10 6 elsewhere.
It is here proposed that the expression for csd.b in the standard be modified as follows:

 csd.b  0.9  0.005 f c   800  10 6 (A.3)

There seems to be little justification to persist with different values of csd.b for different capital cities and
regional Australia.
Predictions of total shrinkage at age 56 days in standard prisms (where drying commences at age
7 days) made using the existing AS3600-2009 model and the revised expressions proposed above
are compared in Table A.2 with the mean values of total measured shrinkage given in Table A.1. It
can be seen that the proposed revision provides much better agreement across the full range of
concrete strengths.

Table A.2. Predicted versus measured total shrinkage strains in standard prisms at age 56 days.
Concrete strength grade 20 25 32 40 50 65 80 100
Revised prediction 672 663 650 636 618 596 574 544
(Predicted/Measured) (0.98) (1.09) (1.13) (1.09) (1.07) (1.02) (1.02) (1.06)
AS3600-2009 prediction 681 657 623 585 539 465 393 297
(Predicted/Measured) (0.99) (1.08) (1.09) (1.00) (0.93) (0.79) (0.7) (0.58)

In Figure A.1, the predictions made using Equations A.1 to A.2 are compared with the
experimental results presented in Table 3.

Mix 1: 32 MPa Mix 2: 80 MPa
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
0 Age (days) 0 Age (days)
Total shrinkage ()
Total shrinkage ()

‐100 ‐100
‐200 Tests ‐200
Tests
‐300 Eq. A.1 to A.3 ‐300
Eqs. A.1 to A.3
‐400 ‐400
‐500 ‐500
‐600 ‐600
‐700 ‐700
‐800 ‐800

Figure A.1. Comparisons between measured total shrinkage in this study and predictions made
using the proposed revision to AS3600-2009 (2).