Experimental and Numerical Quantification of Plastic Settlement in Fresh Cementitious Systems

Abstract

In this paper, the plastic settlement of mortar is analyzed on the basis of small strain consolidation theory and the approach is compared with experimental data. The amount of settlement caused by the self-weight of bulk mortar was measured using a noncontact laser measurement device. In addition, tests were performed on systems containing different geometries of embedded reinforcement to measure the effect of specimen and inclusion geometry on settlement. The influence of mixture proportions and cover depth were analyzed. The experimental results were correlated with results from the numerical simulation of fresh mortars using consolidation analysis. The results suggest that consolidation theory can be used as a reasonable approach to analyze plastic settlement. Further, this model can be used to demonstrate the effects of differential settlement over reinforcing bars or changes in section height.