Contours in Concrete Mix Design-A New Approach

Warda Bint Ashraf 1, Munaz Ahmed Noor2

1

Lecturer, Department of Civil Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh

Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh

Synopsis: Concrete being one of the most popular construction materials can be produced from locally available materials with variable properties such as, lightweight concrete, self compacting concrete, flow-able concrete or simply, most frequently used normal weight concrete. Achieving the desired fresh and hardened concrete properties depends on an appropriate concrete mix design method. Concrete Mix Design is the process of selecting suitable ingredients of concrete and determining their relative amounts with the objective of producing a concrete of the required strength, durability, and workability as economically as possible. In this paper the authors presented a new approach for concrete mix design. Twelve concrete mixes were prepared in a laboratory setup and tested for concrete workability and compressive strengths. As a new approach, contours were used to present the test results in a form that will aid the process of concrete mix design. The main advantage of the proposed method is that the users will have higher degree of freedom for selecting proportions of concrete ingredients. Keywords: concrete mix design; concrete compressive strength; workability; contours.

1. Existing concrete mix design methods

Most of the existing concrete mix design methods can be considered as the combination of three categoriesa) Ratio method: In this method the proportions of concrete ingredients are presented by a ratio, such as, the proportion of cement: fine aggregate: coarse aggregate is presented as 1:2:4 or 1:1.5:3 etc. Here required workability of the concrete mix is achieved by controlling the addition of water during mixing. Though this method is very popular but it is usable only when the requirements of concrete properties are of low precision. These offer simplicity and under normal circumstances, have a margin of strength above that specified. However, due to the variability of mix ingredients, this type of mix varies widely in strength. b) Use of Charts or Graphs: In this approach, proportions of concrete ingredients can be determined using a number of charts or graphs based on some input parameters. DOE method (current British method) of concrete mix design is an example of this type where concrete parameters needed to be determined from various charts or graphs [1]. c) Use of tables: In most of the conventional approaches, tables are used to infer necessary concrete mix design parameters. A very well-known and remarkable example of this type of method is ACI 211 [2]. Although the representation of the concrete mix design procedures followed conventionally are different from each other, all of them are based on large scale trial mix test results.

2. Experimental Details 2.1 Significance of the experiment

For examining contour based concrete mix design procedure a laboratory scale experimental setup was designed. In this experiment, concrete trial mixes were prepared with various mix proportions and tested for concrete workability and compressive strengths. Finally the test results are presented in contour form to be used in concrete mix design procedure.

2.2 Aggregate gradation

All the concrete trial mixes were based on the 5-10-14-18 band aggregate gradation [Figure 1.]. A few important characteristics of these gradations are For 5-10-14-18 band gradation, percentage aggregate retained on any particular sieve are 5% to 10% and 14% to 18% for fine aggregate and coarse aggregate, respectively. For #200 sieve this range is 0 to 5%.

 Any aggregate gradation that falls within 5-10-14-18 band will have Fineness Modulus (FM) within 2 to 3.5 and fine aggregate to total aggregate (fa/ta) ratio within 0.28 to 0.43. [3] It has been proved through experimental test results that for fixed water and cement content, aggregate gradations anywhere within the 5-10-14-18 band will result in similar or closely varied concrete properties (i.e. workability, strength and density). [4] Another research has confirmed that using this aggregate gradation band, wide range of concrete properties can be achieved. [5]

Individual Percent Retained

18

14

10

37.5 mm 20 mm 12.5mm

#8

#4

# 50

Figure 1. Aggregate gradation requirements for 5-10-14-18 band gradation. From the characteristics of 5-10-14-18 band gradation, the resultant advantages of using this gradation in concrete mix proportions is that, if we know the required total aggregate content, the other required aggregate properties such as fineness modulus of fine aggregate, fine aggregate to total aggregate ratio and proportion requirement of different size aggregates can be determined from the band gradation.

# 200

# 100

Sieve Sizes (mm)

2.3 Concrete Mix

Total twelve concrete mixes were prepared with nine cylinder-specimens for each mix. These mixes were prepared using locally available cement brand conforming CEM II/B-M and locally available aggregates conforming the 5-10-14-18 band gradations as discussed above. Specimens were tested for slump, workability and compressive strengths at 3, 7 and 28 days as per ASTM C39 [7]. Concrete mix proportions for saturated surface dry condition of aggregate is shown in table-1. Table- 1: Concrete mix proportions. Mix ID Mix 1 Mix 2 Mix 3 Mix 4 Mix 5 Mix 6 Mix 7 Mix 8 Mix 9 Mix 10 Mix 11 Mix 12 Water Content Kg/m3 180 200 220 180 200 220 180 200 220 180 200 220 Cement Content Kg/m3 360 360 360 400 400 400 440 440 440 500 500 500 Aggregate Content Kg/m3 1905 1851 1797 1871 1817 1763 1837 1783 1729 1785 1731 1677 W/C Ratio 0.50 0.56 0.61 0.45 0.50 0.55 0.41 0.45 0.50 0.36 0.40 0.44 A/C* Ratio 5.29 5.14 4.99 4.68 4.54 4.41 4.17 4.05 3.93 3.57 3.46 3.35

* Aggregate to cement ratio

2.4 Test results

Concrete compressive strength in 7 and 28 days, and workability for different mix proportions are shown in figure 2, 3 and 4, respectively. In most of the conventional concrete mix design methods, workability of the mix is usually presented as the function of the maximum aggregate size, water content and entrained air. But from this experimental setup as discussed above, it has been found that these properties being constant, the mixes still might have variable workability due to the variation of paste (cement and water) volume. With fixed water content, the workability of the mix was found to increase with the increase of paste volume (figure 4.). For example, with a fixed water content of 200 kg/m3, it is possible to have slump of the mix from 75 mm to 175 mm, thus more than 100% variation of slump is possible with a fixed water content and aggregate gradation. Although, this property has been overlooked in most of the available concrete mix design methods but still it could tend the mix proportion to more optimum values where workability is of prime requirements.
500

480

35

460

30

440

25

420

20

400

15

380

10

360 180

190

200

210

220

Water Content (kg/m3) Figure 2. Variation of 7days compressive strength with various cement and water content.

500 480 460

40

45

440 420 400 380

35 30 25 20 15

360 180

190

200

210
3

220

10

Water Content (kg/m ) Figure 3. Variation of 28 days compressive strength with various cement and water content.

28-days compressive strength (MPa)

50

Cement Content (kg/m3)

7-days compressive strength (MPa)

Cement Content (kg/m3)

500
200

480

Cement Content (kg/m3)

175

460 440 420 400

150 125 100 75 50

380 360 180

25 0

190

200

210

220

Water Content (kg/m3) Figure 4. Variation of concrete workability with various cement and water content. 3. Use of contours in concrete mix design Figure 5. represents the variation of 28-days compressive strength and slump together, for known values of water content (kg/m3) and cement content (kg/m3). In this figure the solid thick line represents the range of 28 days compressive strength in MPa and gradually filled contours represent the slump ranges (mm). This single figure can be used for concrete mix proportioning. To illustrate further, if the target concrete compressive strength at 28 days and required workability are known, mix proportions such as water and cement proportion can be directly determined from this figure. Knowing the water and cement content of the mix, total aggregate content can be calculated from the unit volume of concrete. Again, if the total aggregate content is known, 5-10-14-18 band gradation will give the other required properties (fa/ta ratio and/or FM) of aggregate gradation. The main advantage of using contours for concrete mix designing is that, for required concrete properties (compressive strength and slump); it will give a range of mix proportions through which these properties are achievable. For example, let assume that the requirement of a user is to get compressive strength more than 35 MPa at 28 days and with workability around 75 mm. From figure 5. it can be observed that there are various mix proportions that will meet the requirements such as - 460 kg/m3 cement with 195 kg/m3 water or 500kg/m3 cement with 210 kg/m3 water and so on. Thus, the major benefits of using contours for concrete mix design can be summarized as It increases the degree of freedom of the user for selecting the proportions. It considers the variation of workability due to paste volume for mix proportioning.
500

480

Cement Content (kg/m3)

460

440

420

400

380

360 180

190

200

210
3

220

Water Content (kg/m ) Figure 5. Variation of 28 days compressive strength and slump with various mix proportions.

Slump (mm)

Conclusion
This paper features contours as a new approach for concrete mix design. For a specific type of cement and aggregate gradation, compressive strength and workability of the twelve trial concrete mixes were presented in contour form to analyze the use contours for concrete mix designing. From the contours plotted here, it is prominent that the application of contours in concrete mix design increases the freedom of user and moreover, this approach additionally addresses some concrete properties which have been overlooked in various existing mix design methods. Apparently, contours will make concrete mix design procedure more precise, but to produce a complete mix design addressing all the properties of concrete as well as its ingredients, will require a very large number of concrete trial mixes.

Acknowledgement
The Concrete Laboratory of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) is gratefully acknowledged for providing all experimental facilities.

References
1. Teychenne, D.C., Franklin, R.E., and Erntroy, H. C., Design of Normal Concrete Mixes Department of the Environment (DOE), Building Research Establishment, Transport and Road Research Laboratory, London, H.M.S.O., 1975 2. ACI 211.2-98, Standard practice for selecting proportions for Structural Lightweight concrete. www.concrete.org 3. Ashraf, W.B., and Noor, M.A., Performance-Evaluation of Concrete Properties for Different Combined Aggregate Gradation Approaches, Proceedings of The Twelfth East Asia-Pacific Conference on Structural Engineering & Construction (EASEC 12), Hong Kong SAR, China, 26 28 January, 2011, ISBN: 978-962- 442-337-2, Paper Id: EASEC12-699, p (8) 4. Ashraf, W.B., and Noor, M.A., Concrete Property Analysis with the Perspective of 5-10-14-18 and 5-10-18-22 Band Gradation, Proceedings of 2011 International Conference on Green Power, Materials and Manufacturing Technology and Applications (GPMMTA 2011). Chongqing, China, 15 18 July, 2011. Paper Id: 162 p (5) 5. Ashraf, W.B., and Noor, M.A., Compatibility of 5-10-14-18 and 5-10-18-22 Band Gradations for Required Concrete Properties, Proceedings of fib Symposium Prague 2011, Prague, Czech Republic, 8 10 June, 2011. Paper Id: 674, p (4) 6. ASTM C39 / C39M - 10 Standard Test Method for Compressive Strength of Cylindrical Concrete Specimens, www.astm.org