Early-stage performance enhancement of concrete via commercial C-S-H seeds: From lab investigation to field implementation in Illinois, US

There is a growing interest in minimizing construction-related delays while opening transportation infrastructure to traffic. For concrete, performance enhancement at the early stage could be crucial to achieving that goal. In the past decade, there have been lab studies that report C-S-H seeds as potential admixtures for early strength enhancement. However, field studies for these materials have been limited. In this work, we report a case study where we conduct a systematic investigation of commercial C-S-H seeds’ performance: first in the lab and then for a box culvert in the field (Illinois, US). Lab results indicate that C-S-H seeds, with increasing dosages (0–7 to 14 fl oz/cwt) (0% to 0.25–0.51%) enhance the microstructure as well as improve the compressive strength over time. Field results indicate that C-S-H seeds deployed at 5.0 fl oz/cwt (0.18%), compared to the control seedless mixtures, resulted in strength enhancement at both the early and late ages – reaching > 5000 psi in as soon as 2 days. Together, these lab and field results indicate that these C-S-H seeds can be viable admixtures for strength and microstructure enhancement.