Effect of Curing Regimes on Compressive Strength of Lightweight Concrete Using Fly Ash Cenopheres

This paper presents the research results of the influence of different curing regimes on the compressive strength of lightweight concrete using fly ash cenospheres (FAC) and multi-component binder system (cement combined with mineral additives) to make lightweight concrete structures with low bulk density and high compressive strength. The experimental results show that the curing regimes influence significantly on the development of the compressive strength of concrete. The steam curing and autoclave regimes improve the compressive strength of concrete at both early and late age, at early age, concrete strength can also reach about 80% of the final strength value after steam curing and autoclave curing. In particular, when the samples are treated with autoclave curing (210⁰C, 2 MPa), the intensity is higher than that in other curing regimes (steamcuring (70⁰C and 90⁰C, RH ≥ 95%) and standard curing (27 ± 2⁰C, RH ≥ 95%)). The highest compressive strength was nearly 80 MPa, approximately 20% higher than that of  the standard curing samples.