Effect of high volumes of fly ash on flowability and drying shrinkage of engineered cementitious composites

In order to investigate flowability and drying shrinkage of ECC, mini-slump flow deformation test and drying shrinkage are employed to analyse the influence of fly ash on the flowability and shrinkage of ECC. The water-binder ratio is kept at 0.25. The replacement ratio of cement by fly ash is 50%, 60%, 70% and 80%, respectively. The experimental results show that fluidity of fresh cment paste increases obviously as the fly ash becomes larger. The drying shrinkage of ECC specimens is greatly reduced as the content of fly ash increases from 50% to 80%. The measured drying shrinkage strian of ECC specimens with 80% fly ash at 28 days is less than 1000×10^-6. 25% reduction of drying shrinkage of ECC is found when the fly ash content increases from 50% to 80%.