Shall reversible moisture movement be taken into account in estimating movement for movement joints?
The size of concrete is affected by changes in atmospheric humidity: moisture causes expansion while drying causes shrinkage. Such moisture movement is reversible. This is totally different from drying shrinkage in which concrete slowly loses moisture during hardening, thus causing irreversible shrinkage. In fact, the variation of humidity and the estimated reversible moisture movement is not significant (about 30%) and therefore, its contribution to movement does not justify for movement joints as suggested by MN Bussell & R Cather (1995). This question is taken from book named – A Self Learning Manual – Mastering Different Fields of Civil Engineering Works (VC-Q-A-Method) by Vincent T. H. CHU.
