Influence of the moisture content on the dynamic modulus of elasticity of concrete made with recycled aggregate

Abstract The elastic behavior of the concrete is estimated from its strength or determined by static or dynamic tests. However, because the codes of practice do not standardize the internal moisture content of the concrete and disregard the use of recycled aggregates when proposing equations for the estimation of the modulus of elasticity, discrepancies between the values measured and estimated are frequent. The influence of the moisture content of concrete containing basaltic coarse aggregates and coarse recycled concrete aggregate in the dynamic modulus of elasticity is discussed in this paper. A basalt coarse aggregate and two recycled coarse aggregates where used. For each type of coarse aggregate, concrete with compression strength between 25 MPa and 55 MPa were produced. The dynamic modulus of elasticity of the saturated samples were determined and range from 26 GPa to 46 GPa. There is a significant difference in the value of the dynamic modulus of elasticity for dry concrete versus saturated concrete, also influenced by the type of aggregate. Estimations of the modulus of elasticity from the compressive strength equations proposed by the codes of practice must be improved considering its characteristics.