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Investigation of relation between core and cylindrical strength of concrete

specimen cured in different conditions

Conference Paper · July 2011

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Selim Pul Metin Husem

Karadeniz Technical University Karadeniz Technical University
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 Recent Researches in Geography, Geology, Energy, Environment and Biomedicine

Investigation of Relation between Core and Cylindrical Strength of

Concrete Specimen Cured in Different Conditions

Selim PUL Metin HUSEM M. Emin ARSLAN Yousef ZANDI

Civil Engineering Department, Karadeniz Technical University, 61080 Trabzon, TURKEY

http://www.ktu.edu.tr

Abstract-In countries under constant earthquake risk, it is compulsory to determine seismic performances of existing
structures and consequently strength of concrete used in construction should be known to make a decision for
repairing-strengthening. Sometimes it is needed to know in place concrete in reinforced concrete structures. Under the
circumstances, concrete specimens called core are taken in different diameters from various place of structures and
compressive strength is determined by test carried out on these core specimens. In technical literature, there are many
equations used for converting core strength to standard cylindrical strength. In this study, it is determined that there is
a valid relation between compressive strength of core specimens taken from concrete specimens which are cured in
different conditions and those of standard cylindrical specimens.

Key -Words:- Core strength, Compressive strength, Standard cure, Standard cylinder, Air condition cure, Concrete,

1. Introduction
In this study, relation between core specimens kept in
Concrete is widely used in almost all fields of civil different curing conditions and standard cylindrical
engineering nowadays. Some reasons of using concrete concrete specimens.
in construction commonly are that it is economical,
easy to produce, workable and better material hasn’t 2 Experimental Study
been developed, yet. However producing, placing and
curing of concrete require high attention. Especially 2.1. Material Used Producing Concrete
structural damages due to recent earthquakes result Physical properties and quantities of limestone
from insufficiency of concrete strength [1]. On the aggregate used in this study to produce concrete are
other hand, concrete used in reinforced concrete (RC) given in Table 1. CEM II A-P/32.5 R type cement is
structures must be produced and placed suitable for used in the productions.
project requirements. To determine compressive
strength of concrete control specimens are taken when
concrete is placed. In some circumstances data gained Table 1. Some physical properties of the aggregate
from control specimens may not be sufficient or Aggregate Saturated Water %
reliable. Thus, it is needed to get core specimens from Size Specific Absorption (by
hardened concrete. (mm) Gravity (%) weight)
(kg/m3)
Determining of concrete strength or seismic Coarse (4-16) 2630 1.42 55
performance of existing RC structures can be made Fine (0-4) 2730 1.60 45
using core specimens. In addition control specimens
taken from poured concrete are kept in standard curing
condition, but this curing cannot be possible to apply 2.2. Mixture Proportions of Concrete
whole structures. In such a case there are differences
between strength of concrete applied standard cure and Two main groups of concrete were produced. In the
core specimens[2-8]. Therefore it is important to know first group, water amount was constant as 195 kg/m3.
parameters which are affected core strength for Cement amount was constant as 200 kg/m3 in the
determining concrete strength in structures. second group. So, there are six different w/c ratios

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 Recent Researches in Geography, Geology, Energy, Environment and Biomedicine

used in producing of the concretes. The mixture 2.3 Preparation of the specimens for testing
proportion of the concretes is shown in Table 2.
In this study core specimens having 50 mm and 75 mm
Table 2. Mixture proportions of the concretes diameter were used. For each diameter 6 specimens
were taken from prismatic specimens vertical to
Series W/C Cement Water Aggregate pouring direction (Figure 2).
(kg/m3) (kg/m3) (kg/m3)
A 0.40 490 195 1682
B 0.45 434 195 1728
C 0.50 390 195 1769
D 0.55 355 195 1798
E 0.60 325 195 1825
F 0.65 300 195 1847
G 0.40 200 80 2246
H 0.45 200 90 2219
K 0.50 200 100 2192
L 0.55 200 110 2166
M 0.60 200 120 2138
N 0.65 200 130 2112

A concrete mixer having 120 liter capacity was used

to produce. Each size of aggregate was weighted and
put into mixer moisturized in advance and mixed for 3 Figure 2 Prismatic concrete specimens for core
min. After that saturation water was added and mixed 3
min. Thereafter, mixture was mixed another 3 min. by Before testing, diameter/length ratios of the specimens
adding mixing water without stopping. Finally taken from prismatic specimens were cut from two
produced concrete was poured into casts at three stages. sides and for the purpose of having uniform loading
In each production, two prismatic specimens (150 mm both side of core and cylindrical specimens were
x150 mm x 1000 mm) for core specimens and 12 covered. In figure 3 core specimens prepared for testing
standard cylindrical specimens were taken. One day with 75 mm diameter were shown.
after, concrete specimens were taken out of the moulds.
Six cylindrical and one prismatic specimen cured in
water tank at 22°C ± 2°C for 28 days. The other
specimens were kept in air condition by watering every
day (Figure 1).

Figure 3. Core specimens ready for compressive tests

Figure 1 Specimens in air condition 3 Results and Discussion

With the scope of this study, axial compression tests

carried out on core and standard cylindrical concrete
specimens to compare and determine a relation between
them. The results achieved for cylindrical concrete

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 Recent Researches in Geography, Geology, Energy, Environment and Biomedicine

specimens and core specimens with 75 mm and 50 mm Table 5. Compressive strengths of core specimens
are given according to their curing conditions in Table having 75 mm diameter
4, 5 and 6, respectively.
Seri fcm fck St.sp fck(do)/
Table 4 Compressive strengths of standard cylinder (MPa) (MPa) (MPa) fck(so)
Akso 23.90 21.31 2.02
concretes Akdo 22.08 16.22 4.58
0.76
Bkso 22.10 19.02 2.41
Seri Curing fcm fck St.sp fck(w)/ fck(s) 0.70
Bkdo 18.30 13.24 3.96
cond. (MPa) (MPa) (MPa) Ckso 20.20 15.64 3.56
As standard 32.80 29.72 2.4 0.70
0.75 Ckdo 18.10 10.93 5.61
Aw air 24.70 22.35 1.84 Dkso 17.10 14.19 2.28
Bs standard 27.90 25.49 1.89 0.76
0.58 Dkdo 13.70 10.73 2.32
Bw air 20.20 14.00 4.29 Ekso 13.30 10.55 2.15
Cs standard 23.10 22.44 0.52 0.65
0.59 Ekdo 9.50 6.90 2.03
Cw air 16.60 13.33 2.56 Fkso 14.70 11.00 2.89
Ds standard 25.10 23.66 1.13 0.79
0.76 Fkdo 13.30 8.68 3.61
Dw air 19.30 18.10 0.94 Gkso 7.80 5.63 1.70
Es standard 15.90 15.23 0.52 0.70
0.80 Gkdo 6.40 3.92 1.94
Ew air 13.10 12.40 0.77 Hkso 8.20 6.59 1.26
Fs standard 21.20 20.11 0.85 0.81
0.81 Hkdo 7.40 5.31 1.63
Fw air 17.90 16.30 1.13 Kkso 10.30 7.37 2.29
Gs standard 12.30 10.55 1.37 0.80
0.75 Kkdo 9.97 5.92 3.16
Gw air 10.00 7.90 1.64 Lkso 9.95 6.78 2.47
Hs standard 14.00 13.09 0.71 0.74
0.69 Lkdo 8.20 5.05 2.46
Hw air 9.60 9.02 0.45 Mkso 9.70 6.41 2.57
Ks standard 13.20 12.24 0.75 0.83
0.97 Mkdo 9.50 5.34 3.25
Kw air 13.10 11.29 1.45 Nkso 2.98 2.01 0.76
Ls standard 10.20 9.06 0.74 0.84
0.98 Nkdo 2.69 1.69 0.78
Lw air 9.95 8.86 0.85 kso: core having 75 mm dia., stan. curring
Ms standard 10.00 8.80 0.94 kdo: core having 75 mm dia. air curing
0.98
Mw air 9.90 8.65 0.97
Ns standard 3.40 2.37 0.80
0.91 Table 6. Compressive strengths of core specimens
Nw air 3.20 2.16 0.82
having 50 mm diameter
As it is clearly seen from those tables, core dimensions
Seri fcm fck St.sp fck(do)/
affect on strength of concrete. In other words, decrease (MPa) (MPa) (MPa) fck(so)
of core diameters cause strength loss. Strengths of A5kso 16.70 13.85 2.23
standard cylindrical specimens kept in air condition are 0.55
A5kdo 13.00 7.56 4.25
approximately 20% less than those of kept in standard B5kso 20.20 17.99 1.72
0.55
curing condition. This ratio is %34 and %51 for core B5kdo 17.60 9.88 6.03
specimens with 75 mm and 50 mm, respectively. Here, C5kso 18.80 15.20 2.18
0.49
C5kdo 15.10 7.39 6.02
if strength loss stems from curing conditions is D5kso 15.70 14.10 2.81
accepted %20, it is thought that %4 of this loss for 75 0.64
D5kdo 14.60 9.08 4.31
mm core specimens and %30 for 50 mm core E5kso 10.60 8.27 1.82
0.52
specimens can be caused during cutting of core E5kdo 7.70 4.31 2.65
specimens. In addition, this situation shows that smaller F5kso 10.20 6.85 2.62
0.43
sized specimens are affected by cutting process. F5kdo 7.10 2.94 3.25
G5kso 5.20 3.25 1.52
Therefore, this should be taken into account G5kdo 4.10 1.28 2.20
0.39
determining strength of small sized core specimens. H5kso 5.60 3.49 1.65
0.38
H5kdo 4.30 1.33 2.32
In this study, correlation between core and standard K5kso 5.00 3.20 1.41
0.45
cylindrical specimens was made by considering curing K5kdo 4.30 1.45 2.23
conditions using multi-regression method. Correlations L5kso 10.20 7.52 2.09
0.34
L5kdo 4.97 2.59 1.86
between standard cylindrical specimens and core M5kso 4.40 3.33 0.83
specimens with 50mm diameter kept in standard curing 0.64
M5kdo 4.20 2.12 1.63
condition, air condition and in both conditions are N5kso 2.10 1.45 0.51
0.47
given in Figures 4, 5 and 6 respectively. N5kdo 1.80 0.68 0.87
5kso: core having 50 mm dia., stan. curring
5kdo: core having 50 mm dia. air curing

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 Recent Researches in Geography, Geology, Energy, Environment and Biomedicine

standard curing condition, weather condition and in

Standard cylinder strength, MPa

both conditions are given in Figures 7, 8 and 9

R=0.996
respectively.

Standard cylinder strength, MPa

50mm dia. core strength, MPa
R=0.989

Figure 4. Relationship between 50 mm cores and

standard cylinders in standard cure condition.
75mm dia. core strength, MPa
Standard cylinder strength, MPa

Figure 7. Relationship between 75mm cores and

standard cylinders in standard cure condition.
Standard cylinder strength, MPa

R=0.973

50mm dia. core strength, MPa

R=0.984
Figure 5. Relationship between 50mm cores and
standard cylinders in weather condition.
75mm dia. core strength, MPa
Standard cylinder strength, MPa

Figure 8. Relationship between 75mm cores and

standard cylinders in weather condition.
Standard cylinder strength, MPa

R=0.987

50mm dia. core strength, MPa

R=0.992

Figure 6. Relationship between 50mm cores and

standard cylinders for both cure conditions.
75mm dia. core strength, MPa

Correlations between standard cylindrical specimens

and core specimens with 75mm diameter kept in Figure 9. Relationship between 75mm cores and
standard cylinders for both cure conditions.

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 Recent Researches in Geography, Geology, Energy, Environment and Biomedicine
It is seen in these figures, specimens produced and
applied different curing conditions with the scope of
this study have sufficient correlation coefficient
depending on either linear or parabolic regression
analysis. Especially, regression analysis by taking into
account all specimens was more useful for estimation
of concrete strength.
Main purpose of this study was to investigate
correlation of standard cylindrical and core specimens
with 75 mm and 50 mm diameter in different curing
conditions in wide strength interval. Depending on the
general equations were obtained using all data belongs
to concrete having different curing condition. When
these equations and correlation coefficients are taken
into account, it is thought that this study is going to
contribute to technical literature.
Relation between strength of standard cylindrical
specimens kept in standard cure and core specimens
with 75 mm diameter is shown in Figure 9.
4 Conclusion
Some conclusions gained from this study are given
below;
• It is known that strength of concrete is affected from
curing conditions. In this study, specimens kept in
standard curing condition %20 higher than those of
kept in normal weather condition.
• Strength loss was observed for 75 mm and 50 mm
core specimens which were taken from the same
concrete, because of cutting effects. This strength
loss is %4 for 75 mm core specimens and %30 for
50 mm core specimens. This result shows that
strength prediction isn’t reliable by using 50 mm
core sample depending on maximum aggregate size.
• Equations achieved for standard cylindrical and 75
mm core specimens kept in normal weather
condition are suitable for equation suggested by
Poineau[9], Mohiuddin[10] , Cambell and Tobin
[11].
• Coefficient which is gained using linear regression
analysis between strength of 50 mm core and
standard cylindrical specimens kept in standard cure
is determined as 1.54. This value is 1.31 between 75
mm core and standard cylindrical specimens in the
same curing condition.
ISBN: 978-1-61804-022-0
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