Prediction of Compressive Strength of Unsaturated Polyester Resin Based Polymer Concrete Using Maturity Method

This study investigated to predict the compressive strength of unsaturated polyester resin based polymer concrete using the maturity method. The test results show that the development of the compressive strength increased exponentially until an age of 24 hours. After 24 hours, the development of the compressive strength just increased gradually. This test result shows that the strength of unsaturated polyester resin based polymer concrete was developed mainly at the early age. Estimated datum temperature of unsaturated polyester resin based polymer concrete was $-20.67^{\circ}C$ which was much lower than of datum temperature ($-10^{\circ}C$) of Portland cement concrete. Also, this study result shows that the existing maturity index associated with Portland cement concrete was not applicable for polymer concrete because curing time of Portland cement concrete is different clearly with curing time of polymer concrete. The cause of different curing time was that there were different curing mechanisms between Portland cement concrete and polymer concrete. In order to best apply the experimental data to a model, CurveExpert Professional, the commercial software, was used to determine the predictive model regarding the compressive strength of unsaturated polyester resin based polymer concrete. As a result, Gompertz Relation or Weibull Model was an appropriate model as a predictive model. The proposed model can be used to predict the compressive strength, especially, it is more useful when the maturity is in the range between $40^{\circ}C{\cdot}h^{0.4}$ and $900^{\circ}C{\cdot}h^{0.4}$.

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