Revisiting the protected paste volume concept for internal curing of high-strength concretes

Internal curing of high-strength concrete has been the subject of extensive research for the last decade. The concept of protected paste volume has been one of the most significant theoretical approaches to internal curing. In this paper, the applicability of the protected paste volume concept to internal curing is re-evaluated in view of recent experimental evidence. It is shown, that the concept of protected paste volume and recommendation to limit the spacing factor to approximately 200 μm, cannot be extended to internal curing of high-strength concrete, since the distance of penetration of the internal curing water into the surrounding matrix depends mainly on the availability of internal curing water to the surrounding cementitious matrix. The pore structure of LWA and the size of SAP particles seem to have a marked influence on the availability of internal curing water and thus are factors of greater importance than the spacing factor.