Plastic shrinkage:

Excessive early evaporation between the first 30 min to 6 hours

• Nano calcium carbonate caused the rapid hydration of cement due to its surface effect,
smaller particle sizes and higher surface energy. Additions of nano calcium carbonate
greater of 2% can increased the early age shrinkage of cement paste, when the content of
NCaCO3 was1%, Nano calcium carbonate mainly played the role of filling up pores rather
than promoting hydration of cement, so the early age shrinkage of cement paste with 1%
NC was only 1/3 that of C0 and could obviously decrease the early age shrinkage of
cement paste. Liu et al. 2014
• Samples with M-SiO2, N-SiO2 and fibers (CNF and PPF) were subjected to an air flow of 3
m/s, increasing evaporation and, therefore, enlarging both shrinkage and cracking. The
reduction in the size particle of the silica addition accelerated material stiffening and
increased cracking risk about 34%. The use of CNF in SCC composition was not able to
control cracking at early age. However, the incorporation of a similar volume fraction of
PPF fully reduced the cracking risk at 0%. Plastic shrinkage cracks are discontinuous,
occurred in both random and diagonal patterns, are relatively short (few inches to several
feet in length) and typically fairly shallow. Puentes et al. 2015
 Autogenous shrinkage
• The nanoindentation results suggest that CNTs can modify and reinforce the cement
paste matrix at the nanoscale by increasing the amount of high stiffness C-S-H and
decreasing the porosity, which leads in this case to the reduction of the autogenous
shrinkage. Autogenous shrinkage was reduced around 60% using CNTs. Metaxa et al. 2009
• Nano-MgO improves the internal structure of the cementitious materials over time.
Nano-MgO reduced the linear autogenous shrinkage by 53, 56 and 80 percent for
NMgO2.5, NMgO5.0 and NMgO7.5, respectively, and nano-MgO was able to be used as
the expansive agent. The autogenous shrinkage change is 33% for nano-
• MgO 75 as compared to the control samples. These results show that over time nano-
MgO improves the microstructure preventing shrinkage and therefore cracks. Polat et al.
2017
• Nano-clay15 and nano-clay30 reduced AS by 43% and 40%, respectively, but nano-clay45
showed the highest shrinkage even more than that of control sample by 1.5% at the end
of 28 days curing. Polat et al. 2015.
• At 72 h, compared with the control UHPC mixture without NCaCO3, the autogenous
shrinkages of the mixtures with 2% NC increased by 16.87%, it can be noticed that
generally mixtures with greater NC content increased autogenous shrinkage and are likely
to be more susceptible to the early-age cracking. Li et al. 2016.
 Drying shrinkage
• The addition of nano-TiO2 into the AASP reduces the shrinkage of the paste cured under 20 ± 3 ºC and
90 ± 5% or 55 ± 5% RH. Under 90 ± 5% RH, the shrinkage curves tend to level off after 28 days, but go up
even till 90 days under 55 ± 5% RH. Yang et al. 2014
• The shrinkage reducing effect of TiO2 addition can be observed obviously after 5 days for 1% TiO2
incorporated specimen, however, for 3% and 5% TiO2 incorporated specimen, shrinkage reducing effect
can be seen only after 2 days. The addition of nano-TiO2 promotes the formation of geopolymer and
results in denser microstructure with less cracks. Duang et al. 2014
• SEM results demonstrated that the addition of nano-TiO2 into the AASP accelerates its hydration
process, resulting in more hydration products and denser structure. Yang et al. 2014
• Comparing the total length changes over a total of 168 days through a drying shrinkage test, the
DS_NSyn0.26, and DS_HSt0.26 (which uses steel fibre), each improved 38% and 27%, respectively,
compared with DS_plain. Additionally, unlike DS_Hst0.26 (which uses steel fibre) and DS_plain (without
fibre), DS_NSyn0.26 shrinkage converged more quickly, in approximately 21 days. Nano-synthetic fibre
is more effective in controlling cracks, as well as drying shrinkage, over time. Lee et al. 2016
• The drying shrinkage rate of the cement mortar with nanoparticles increased more significantly than
the ordinary cement mortar, and the early drying shrinkage rate of the mortar with nano-particles was
faster. The drying shrinkage rate of the concrete containing 2% NS and 2% NC at 28 d was increased by
124.8% and 85.8%, respectively, compared to the reference concrete due to its surface effect,
pozzolanic reaction and microscopic aggregate filling effect, nano-particles have larger surface energy,
to change the orientation degree of calcium hydroxide crystals in the interface transition zone and fill
pores among cementitious materials. Gao et al. 2017
 Thermal cracking:

• The addition of nS reduces the setting time and the beginning of the acceleration
period of cement hydration. With 2.5 wt% nS, both the initial setting time and the
time to reach the maximum temperature upon hydration decrease, respectively,
60% and 51% when compared with samples without nS. Senff et al. 2009
• Concrete with 50% FA incorporating 4% nano-SiO2 can reach ‘‘higher’’
temperatures about 61 jC, which slightly lowers than that of PCC about 65 jC and
higher than that of HFAC about 51 jC. It means an increase in temperature of 19%
with respect to HFAC.
• However, it should be noted that using a higher content of nano-SiO2 must be
accompanied by adjustments to the water and superplasticizer dosage in the mix
in order to ensure that specimens do not suffer excessive self-desiccation and
cracking. Byung-Wan et al. 2006.
• The addition of the fine TiO2 powders significantly accelerated hydration,
increased the intensity of the heat peak and shortened its duration of occurrence.
The increase of TiO2 dosage from 5% to 10% enhanced these effects, but did not
trigger a proportional increase of the heat release rate. Chen et al. 2010.
 Freeze-Thaw Damage

• Frost resistance of concrete mixes can be considerably improved by the addition

of nano-Al2O3 and nano-SiO2. These nano-materials behave not only as
promoters of pozzolanic reaction but also as fillers improving the pore structure of
concrete and densifying the microstructure of cement paste. Behfarnia and Salemi
2013

• Under 100 F–T cycles, several cracks appeared around the aggregate, and some
cracks ran across the cement paste in both the NC0 and NC1 samples. However,
no obvious cracks were observed in both

• the NC3 and NC5 samples. The data indicates that the filling and activating effects
of NKC improved the durability of the concrete during F–T actions. Although the
control specimens were severely damaged after 125 F–T cycles, the samples
containing 3% and 5% NKC were still in good condition. Fan et al. 2015
 Abrasion/Erosion
• The abrasion resistance of concrete can be considerably improved with the addition of
nano-particles or PP fibers. However, the indices of abrasion resistance of concrete
containing nano-particles are much larger than that of concrete containing PP fibers. So
the nano-particles are more favorable to the abrasion resistance of concrete than PP
fibers. Li et al. 2005.
• The abrasion resistance and the compressive strength of the specimens could be
improved by partially replacing of Portland cement with SiO2 and Al2O3 nanoparticles.
The enhancement of the both mechanical properties is superior in presence of SiO2
nanoparticles. The abrasion resistance of the specimens is enhanced by increasing the
nanoparticles content in both curing media. Nazari and Riahi 2011.
• It shows that the abrasion resistance of concrete samples cured in the nano-SiO2
environment has been considerably improved. EF values indicated that the enhanced
extent of the abrasion resistance of the concrete samples cured in colloidal nano-SiO2 is
much greater than that of concrete specimens cured in pure water. In other words,
maximum and minimum values of EF obtained in the environment with 12% and 4%
nano-SiO2, respectively. The abrasion resistance increases with the growth of the dosages
of nano particles in the specimens cured in colloidal nano-SiO2. However, the indices of
abrasion resistance of samples sprayed at the third time are much larger than those of
samples sprayed at the first or second time. Ardalan et al. 2011.
 Summary

• Shrinkage was consistently reduced around 27% and 80% by using N-TiO2,
N-MgO, CNT and N-fibers additions.

• N-SiO2 and N-TiO2 additions reduced the setting time, accelerate the
hydration activity and increased the rate of heat evolution, because the
high surface area of the particles.

• F-T resistance was enhanced with N-SiO2, N-Al2O3 and NCK additions, by
improving the pore structure and creating a denser and less permeable
concrete.

• N-TiO2, N-SiO2, N-Al2O3, N-SiC and PPF additions improved

abrasion/erosion resistance up to 42% in concretes.