Effect of Cold Joint Condition on Concrete Strength

During the construction of concrete structures, delay time and improper casting sequence may lead to the creation of cold joints that would consequently affect the concrete strength. In this research, the effect of orientation angle and delay time characteristics of the cold joints on the concrete strength was investigated experimentally. Experiments were conducted on concrete cubic samples with the compressive strength, water to cement ratio and slump values equal to 30 MPa, 0.5 and 7 cm respectively. In this experiments, the orientation angle of cold joints with respect to horizontal were considered as 0o, 30o, 45o, 60o and 90o and delay times were considered as 15, 30, 60, 90 and 120 minutes. Then, the uniaxial compressive strengths and corresponding strains of the produced samples were measured. Based on the experiments, the results, a significant relationship between the compressive strength of concrete and angle and delay time of cold joints was identified, with the most suitable angle of the cold joint being at 0o and the most unsuitable angle being at 45o, providing the highest and the least compressive strengths respectively.