Construction and Building Materials 105 (2016) 377383

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Construction and Building Materials

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Stressstrain relationship in axial compression for EPS concrete

Chengchen Cui a,b,c,, Qiang Huang a,b,c, Dongbin Li a,c, Chunri Quan a,c, Hongchao Li a,c
a

China Academy of Building Research, Beijing 100013, PR China

Department of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PR China
c
China Building Technique Group Co., Ltd, Beijing 100013, PR China
b

h i g h l i g h t s

Stressstrain behavior of EPS concrete in uniaxial compression was observed.

Effect of dry density and curing age on the mechanical properties was grasped.

A stressstrain model for EPS concrete was proposed and its applicability was confirmed.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 1 October 2015
Received in revised form 30 November 2015
Accepted 22 December 2015
Available online 28 December 2015
Keywords:
EPS concrete
Stressstrain relationship
Uniaxial compression
Dry density
Curing age

a b s t r a c t
Expanded polystyrene (EPS) concrete is an environment friendly lightweight material, which is widely
used for building construction in recent years. In this study, EPS concrete with the dry density of
8001200 kg/m3 was made by replacing coarse aggregates with EPS beads, and its stressstrain behavior
was investigated based on the axial compression tests. Then, the effect of dry density and curing age on
the compressive strength as well as peak strain were observed. Finally, a stressstrain model for EPS concrete was proposed and its applicability was discussed. As a result of this study, EPS concrete showed
higher compressive strength and peak strain with the increase of dry density and curing age. It was also
indicated that the proposed stressstrain model agreed well with the test results and could be used for
the structure analysis and design in the structural application of EPS concrete.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Because of lightweight feature and good thermal properties, EPS
concrete has been widely used in the construction of nonstructural
and structural members, such as walls and slabs [1,2]. Especially, a
new structure system named lightweight steel and lightweight
concrete structure (LSLCS), which used EPS concrete as structural
lightweight concrete, was proposed and applied to the building
construction in China [3]. And the structural capacities of those
LSLCS buildings were also evaluated based on the analytical
research. Accordingly, it is necessary to clarify the material characteristic of EPS concrete such as the stressstrain relationship, since
stressstrain relationship of the concrete is the foundation of
structural analysis and design.
In recent years, some researchers have conducted the observation of mix proportion and basic properties for EPS concrete

Corresponding author at: China Academy of Building Research, Beijing 100013,

PR China.
E-mail address: cuicc@126.com (C. Cui).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2015.12.159
0950-0618/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

[411]. However, to the best of the authors knowledge, little

systematic studies has been conducted on the stressstrain relationship of EPS concrete. And compared with the normal concrete
[1218], almost no mathematic model was proposed for the
stressstrain behavior of EPS concrete in previous researches,
which is desirable for the structural analysis and design in structural applications of EPS concrete such as LSLCS buildings. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to conduct a detailed
experimental study on the stressstrain behavior and develop a
stressstrain model for EPS concrete. According to the fib Model
Code for Concrete Structures 2010 [12], lightweight aggregate concrete with a density under 800 kg/m3 can usually not be used for
structural applications. Hence, the stressstrain behaviors of EPS
concrete with the dry density of 8001200 kg/m3, which were
made by replacing coarse aggregates with EPS beads, were
observed based on the axial compression tests. Then, the effect of
dry density and curing age on the basic properties of EPS concrete
was discussed. Finally, a stressstrain model for EPS concrete was
proposed and its applicability was verified.

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C. Cui et al. / Construction and Building Materials 105 (2016) 377383

2. Test program
2.1. Materials and mix proportions
ASTM Type I ordinary Portland cement (OPC) with a 28-day
compressive strength of 42.5 MPa was used as cementitious material in the concrete mix. River sand with a fineness modulus of 2.6
was used as fine aggregate. The commercially available spherical
expanded polystyrene (EPS) was used as lightweight aggregate
(see Fig. 1(a)) in place of the normal coarse aggregate. Here, the
grain diameter of EPS beads was mostly 3 mm and the bulk density
was 16 kg/m3. In order to obtain suitable workability, naphthalene
water-reducing admixture was used.
The EPS concrete specimens were divided into six series with
the parameters such as dry density (800 kg/m3, 1000 kg/m3 and
1200 kg/m3) and curing age (28 days and 60 days). And there were
four specimens in each series used for uniaxial compression test,
three of them (test group) were used for the observation of basic
properties and the proposal of stressstrain model, another one
(check group) was used for the applicability verification of the proposed stressstrain model. Details of the specimen series and the
mix proportions of EPS concrete are shown in Table 1.
2.2. Preparation of specimens
The fresh concrete (see Fig. 1(b)) was poured into steel molds
and compacted by hand slightly. The specimens were demolded
approximately 24 h later, then placed in a standard curing room
at a temperature of 20 2 C and humidity of 95% until the testing
age was reached. As shown in Fig. 1(c), EPS beads were distributed
uniformly in the composite of EPS concrete.
According to the current Chinese National Standard GB/T500812002 [19] for test method of concrete, specimen size was fixed at
100 mm  100 mm  300 mm. In order to observe the difference
of compressive strength between prism and cube, three cubes with
dimension 100 mm  100 mm  100 mm were casted for each
specimen group.
To determine the dry density of each specimen series, three test
specimens were oven dried to a constant weight (60 h, 150 C)
after the test at curing age such as 28 days and 60 days. The measured dry density reported in Table 1 is the mean result of the
three specimens (coefficient of variance: 0.0120.043), and it
shows a good agreement to the design dry density.
2.3. Test procedure
The stressstrain behavior was determinated by tests on the
prism specimens, which were performed in a MTS electronic

(a) Expanded polystyrene

universal testing machine with a capacity of 300 kN. The load

was controlled by displacement, and the loading rate was fixed
at 0.003 mm/s. To facilitate the ball joint adjustment, the two
strain gauges were attached on the middle surfaces of the two
opposite sides and parallel to the longitudinal axis for every specimen. In order to ensure that the specimen was loaded uniaxially,
the ball joint was adjusted until the strains recorded on the both
sides were consistent. Due to the strain gauge experienced failure
after specimen cracking, the strain of the full stressstrain curve
was obtained by the displacement gauge.
3. Test results
3.1. Failure pattern
The failure patterns of specimens are shown in Fig. 2. The
inclined cracks and vertical cracks appeared along the loading
direction when approaching the peak stress. After the peak stress,
the crack extended to the central section gradually with the
increase of the strain. Finally, the specimen failed as the crack
developed from micro to macroscopic and crossed throughout
the entire specimen. It was indicated that the failure pattern was
similar to those reported in previous studies [5,8]. As shown in
Fig. 2, cracks of specimens at 60 days exhibited similar number
and inclination angle as those of specimens at 28 days. That means
curing age had little influence on the failure pattern of EPS concrete
specimen.
3.2. Basic properties
The basic properties of EPS concrete are presented in Table 2,
which are calculated as the mean values of the test group for each
specimen series. The compressive strengths of prism and cube
specimens are noted as fc and fcu, respectively. The ratio fc/fcu of
EPS concrete is 0.830.95, and it is higher than that of the normal
concrete 0.76 [18]. The reason for this difference can be considered
that no coarse aggregate was used in EPS concrete and the properties of the two components (EPS beads and hardened cement
paste) in the composite of EPS concrete showed weaker lateral
restraint to the center of the specimen, which led to small strength
increase for cube specimens compared with prism specimens.
The variations of the compressive strength and peak strain (the
strain corresponding to the peak stress) with dry density are
shown in Figs. 3 and 4, respectively. As it can be seen, the increases
of density and curing days led to increases in the compressive
strength and peak strain. Here, as shown in Table 2, for the same
dry density, the peak strain of EPS concrete increased by 13.7
14.8% at 60 days compared with 28 days. In addition, for the same

(b) Fresh EPS concrete

(c) Internal cross section of

harden EPS concrete

beads
Fig. 1. Expanded polystyrene beads and EPS concrete.

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C. Cui et al. / Construction and Building Materials 105 (2016) 377383

Table 1
Details of specimen series and the mix proportions of EPS concrete.
Specimen series

1
2
3
4
5
6

Dry density of EPS concrete

(kg/m3)

Curing age (days)

Design density

Measured density

800
1000
1200
800
1000
1200

797
986
1199
793
995
1168

28
28
28
60
60
60

Mix proportion
Cement
(kg/m3)

Sand
(kg/m3)

Water
(kg/m3)

Water-reducing
agent (kg/m3)

EPS volume content (%)

350
350
350
350
350
350

400
600
800
400
600
800

240
240
265
240
240
265

3.5
3.5
3.5
3.5
3.5
3.5

71
54
36
71
54
36

(a) Dry density 800kg/m3 at

28 days

(b) Dry density 1000kg/m3 at

28 days

(c) Dry density 1200kg/m3 at

28 days

(d) Dry density 800kg/m3 at

60 days

(e) Dry density 1000kg/m3 at

60 days

(f) Dry density 1200kg/m3 at

60 days

Fig. 2. Failure pattern of specimens.

Table 2
Summary of test results.
Dry
density
(kg/m3)

Curing
age
(days)

Prism
compressive
strength fc
(MPa)

Cube
compressive
strength fcu
(MPa)

fc/fcu

Peak
strain
ec ()

800

28
60
28
60
28
60

2.86
3.00
4.77
5.15
5.55
5.60

3.08
3.47
5.08
5.43
6.24
6.76

0.93
0.86
0.94
0.95
0.89
0.83

3.54
4.04
4.27
4.90
4.46
5.07

1000
1200

curing age, the peak strain of EPS concrete with the dry density
1200 kg/m3 increased by approximately 26.0% compared with the
dry density 800 kg/m3. It means that the EPS concrete approached
its peak stress at higher strain levels with the increase of dry density. This result is similar to those indicated in the previous
researches [4,9,20].
Density is one of the important parameters which can control
many physical properties in lightweight concrete [5]. For modified
waste expanded polystyrene concrete, Kan [21] studied the
relationship between compressive strength and hardened concrete

Fig. 3. Variation of compressive strength with dry density.

density ranging from 980 to 2025 kg/m3, and proposed the equation as f c 13:8 lnq  85. In the same way, the equation based
on the present test results of EPS concrete with a dry density of
8001200 kg/m3 at 28 days is given by Eq. (1) in this study (correlation coefficient: r = 0.963).

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study, a stressstrain model for EPS concrete is proposed according

to the test results at 28 days (except 60 days).
The comparisons between typical stressstrain relationships of
the normal concrete and experimental stressstrain curves of EPS
concrete are shown in Fig. 8. The relations between stress and
strain for the normal concrete are described by Eqs. (2) and (3),
which are presented in the fib Model Code for Concrete Structures
2010 [12] and the Chinese National Standard GB50010-2010 [18],
respectively.

f
ke=ec  e=ec 2

f c 1 k  2e=ec
8
ne=ec
< n1
f
e=ec n

e= ec
fc :
2

ac e=ec 1 e=ec

Fig. 4. Variation of peak strain with dry density.

f c 6:46 lnq  40:18

where f c is the compressive strength (MPa) and q is the dry density

(kg/m3) of EPS concrete. The relationship between compressive
strength and dry density of EPS concrete is shown in Fig. 5. The figure also shows the strength and density results of EPS aggregate
concrete from other existed researches [7,8]. As can be noted, the
form of the formula could be used for other reported test results.

2
e=ec 6 1

in which k, n and ac are the correlative coefficients for the different

concrete grades.
As can be seen from Fig. 8, the stressstrain curve of EPS concrete under uniaxial compression has different geometric features
with that of normal concrete, which can be given mathematically
as follows:


(1) E0 < Ec , the initial tangent elastic modulus E0 ddfe

4.1. Development of the model equation

An analytical expression of stressstrain curve for EPS concrete
is necessary and desirable for the structural analysis and design in
structural applications of EPS concrete such as LSLCS buildings.
From Figs. 6 and 7, it can be found that the curing age has little
influence on the shape of the stressstrain curve. Hence, in this

modulus Ec ec , because EPS beads were compacted gradu-

d2 f =f c
de=ec 2

0 on the

ascending branch and the descending branch, respectively.

(3) When e ! 1, ddfe ! 0, f ! f r , where the descending curve
converges to the residual strength f r .
In this paper, the stressstrain behavior of EPS concrete is modeled using the following two equations. The equation for the
ascending branch is given by Eq. (4), which was originally proposed for the normal concrete by Sargin [17]. Furthermore, in this
study, a new equation given by Eq. (5) was developed to predict
the descending branch of stressstrain curve for EPS concrete.

The ascending branch :

f
ae=ec b  1e=ec 2

f c 1 a  2e=ec be=ec 2

The descending branch :

f
1c

f c e=ec d c

For the EPS concrete with different dry densities, the model
parameters a, b, c and d are shown in Table 3. The comparison
results between theoretical and experimental stressstrain curves
of the test group specimens are illustrated in Fig. 9. It can be found
that the theoretical curves exhibit good agreement with the test
results in general. It means that the proposed model evaluates
the stressstrain behavior of EPS concrete in uniaxial compression
reasonably well.
From Eq. (4), the model parameter a was determined by the
boundary condition at e 0:

Fig. 5. The relationship between compressive strength and density of EPS concrete.

, secant

ally during the initial stage of loading, which resulted in a

low initial tangent elastic modulus [4].
(2) There are two inflection points with

4. Proposal of stressstrain model

e0

fc

3.3. Stressstrain curves

Figs. 6 and 7 show the stressstrain curves of all prism specimens at 28 days and 60 days, respectively. The peak strain of EPS
concrete is observed as 3.55.1 in this study and larger than that
of the normal concrete 2.0 [18]. Furthermore, the stress of EPS
concrete decreased slowly and converged to a residual strength
at the larger strain area of descending branch. As a result, it can
be concluded that EPS concrete has better ductility and energy dissipation capacity compared with the normal concrete.

e=ec > 1


df =f c 
df =deje0 E0

de=ec e0
f c =ec
Ec

And the model parameter b adjusting the shape of the ascending branch was obtained by a nonlinear regression analysis on
the test curves presented in Fig. 6.
Fig. 10 illustrates the influence of model parameters c and d on
the theoretical curves. Fig. 10(a) and Eq. (5) indicate that f/fc has a

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C. Cui et al. / Construction and Building Materials 105 (2016) 377383

(a) Dry density 800 kg/m3

(b) Dry density 1000 kg/m3

(c) Dry density 1200 kg/m3

Fig. 6. Compressive stressstrain curves of specimens at 28 days.

(a) Dry density 800 kg/m3

(b) Dry density 1000 kg/m3

(c) Dry density 1200 kg/m3

Fig. 7. Compressive stressstrain curves of specimens at 60 days.

Table 3
Model parameters.

Fig. 8. Comparisons of normalized stressstrain curve between EPS concrete and

normal concrete.

constant value of f/fc = 1 if c tends to negative infinity, and the

material is regarded as an ideal plastic material. On the contrary,
if c equals to 1, f/fc reaches a constant value of f/fc = 0 and the
material is considered completely brittle. As a result, the value of
c ranges from negative infinity to 1. From Fig. 10(a) it can be seen
that the value of fr/fc increases as the model parameter c decreases,
which determines the residual strength fr.
Fig. 10(b) reveals a similar trend for the model parameter d. The
value of f/fc equals to 1 when d = 0, which also leads to an ideal
plastic material. On the contrary, f/fc has a constant value of f/fc =
(1 + c)/c if d tends to negative infinity. As a result, the value of d
ranges from negative infinity to 0. From Fig. 10(b) it can be seen

Dry density (kg/m3)

The ascending
branch
a

800
1000
1200

0.759
0.599
0.501

0.465
0.573
0.799

2.264
1.666
1.615

1.526
2.789
5.180

The descending
branch

that the larger the value of parameter d, the steeper the shape of
the descending branch of the stressstrain curve will be.
By nonlinear regression, the relationships of model parameters
a, b, c and d with dry density q are given as Eqs. (7)(10), which
indicate the influence of EPS beads content on the stressstrain
behavior of EPS concrete.

a 0:961  106 q2  0:0026q 2:189

b 1:218  106 q2  0:0016q 0:967

c 7:275  106 q2 0:0161q  10:503

d 11:301  106 q2 0:0135q  5:080

10

4.2. Application of the proposed stressstrain model

To verify the applicability of the proposed stressstrain model
of EPS concrete under uniaxial compression, the proposed model

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C. Cui et al. / Construction and Building Materials 105 (2016) 377383

5. Conclusions
In this study, the stressstrain model of EPS concrete which can
be applied to the analytical research was proposed, and its applicability was discussed. The results can be summarized as follows:

Fig. 9. Comparisons of the proposed model and the experimental results in the test
groups.

equations were applied to the test results of the check groups. As

shown in Fig. 11, the theoretical curves exhibit a good agreement
with the ascending branch of the experimental curves. However,
a snap-back occurred at the later stage of the descending branch
in the specimen with dry density 1000 kg/m3. It was considered
that the EPS beads were compacted in the later stage of the
descending branch, then resulted in a small amount of strength
growth. However, the snap-back of the descending branch
occurred in individual specimen, and it is expected to be unstable
and has no significance. In other words, the proposed stressstrain
model has applicable prediction accuracy.

(a) Model parameter c

The compressive strength of EPS concrete showed an increasing

trend as the dry density and the curing age increase. For EPS
concrete with dry densities ranging from 800 kg/m3 to
1200 kg/m3, the equation of relation between compressive
strength and dry density was given by f c 6:46 lnq  40:18.

For EPS concrete, the ratio of prism compressive strength fc to
cubic compressive strength fcu (fc/fcu) was larger than that of
the normal concrete. The ratio fc/fcu of EPS concrete was
observed to vary between 0.83 and 0.95 in this study.

The peak strain observed in EPS concrete was 3.55.1 and larger than that of the normal concrete 2.0. And the stress of EPS
concrete was seen to be decreasing slowly at the larger strain
area in descending branch of stressstrain curve. In this regard,
EPS concrete behaved better ductility and energy dissipation
capacity compared with the normal concrete.

The axial compressive stressstrain relation of EPS concrete was
significantly different from that of the normal concrete. And
typical analytical stressstrain model of the normal concrete
could not describe the stressstrain curve of EPS concrete.

The stressstrain model for EPS concrete was proposed and the
model parameters were obtained based on mathematical
derivation and regression analysis. For the ascending branch
of the stressstrain curve, the formula of the well-known Sargins stressstrain relationship was adopted. For the descending
branch, a new analytical expression was proposed with a

(b) Model parameter d

Fig. 10. Influences of model parameters on theoretical curves.

(a) Dry density 800 kg/m3

(b) Dry density 1000 kg/m3

(c) Dry density 1200 kg/m3

Fig. 11. Comparisons of the proposed model and the experimental results in the check groups.

C. Cui et al. / Construction and Building Materials 105 (2016) 377383

rational formula. The proposed stressstrain model agreed well

with the test results and could be used for the structure analysis
and design in the structural application of EPS concrete.

Acknowledgment
This study was supported by the Ministry of Housing and
Urban-Rural Development of China (Project number 2014-K2-012).
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