CANADIAN JOURNAL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING, cilt.35, sa.4, ss.349-357, 2008 (SCI-Expanded)
Microwave energy can accelerate the hydration of cement, which results in the rapid strength development of concrete. In this paper, prediction of later age compressive strength of fly ash cement mortars, based on the accelerated strength of mortars cured with microwave energy, was investigated. To accelerate curing properly, optimal processing parameters of microwave curing (MC) on Portland cement mortars (CM) and fly ash cement mortars (FA) were first determined and then were applied to mortars. The possible early ages for the strength prediction were found to be at 6 and 8 h for CM and FA, respectively. The error percentages for prediction of CM were +/-2.22% and 2.91% for 7 and 28 d, respectively. Error percentages for FA, on the other hand, were +/-4.36% and 5.20% for 7 and 28 d, respectively.