A viscoelastic approach for the assessment of the drying shrinkage behaviour of cementitious materials

A new model for the drying shrinkage of concrete is presented. In this model, drying shrinkage strains are regarded as being a spherical elastic and creep response of the material under rising pore pressures during the drying process. Therefore, a basic creep model which allows to incorporate these pore pressures is developed on the basis of microscopic considerations of the role of water in the creep mechanism. Then, the model response is compared to experimental results performed on a cement paste specimen subjected to drying. The developed model is able for describing the main features of the shrinkage behaviour of cement based materials.