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Construction and Building

Construction and Building Materials 22 (2008) 18311840

MATERIALS
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Empirical modeling of fresh and hardened properties of self-compacting concretes by genetic programming
Erdogan Ozbay
b

a,*

, Mehmet Gesoglu b, Erhan Gu neyisi

a Kilis Vocational High School, University of Gaziantep, 79000 Kilis, Turkey Civil Engineering Department, University of Gaziantep, 27310 Gaziantep, Turkey

Received 6 February 2007; received in revised form 19 April 2007; accepted 26 April 2007 Available online 20 June 2007

Abstract This article introduces genetic programming (GP) as a new tool for the formulations of fresh and hardened properties of self-compacting concretes (SCC). There are no well known explicit formulations for predicting fresh and hardened properties of SCCs. Therefore, the objective of the paper presented herein is to develop robust formulations based on the experimental data and to verify the use of GP for generating the formulations for slump ow diameter, V-funnel ow time, compressive strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity and electrical resistivity of SCCs. To generate a database for the training and testing sets, a total of 44 SCC mixtures with and without mineral admixtures were cast at 0.32 and 0.44 water/binder ratios. The mineral admixtures used were y ash, silica fume and granulated blast furnace slag. Of all 44 concrete mixtures, the training and testing sets consisted of randomly selected 28 and 16 mixtures, respectively. The paper showed that the GP based formulation appeared to well agree with the experimental data and found to be quite reliable, especially for hardened concrete properties. 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Self-compacting concrete; Fresh properties; Electrical resistivity; Genetic programming

1. Introduction Since its development in the late 1980s in Japan, SelfCompacting Concrete (SCC) has brought a new insight into the concrete technology so that SCC has been considered as a quite revolution in the construction industry. Its introduction represents a major technological advance which leads to a better quality of concrete, increased productivity and much improved working environment on site [1]. SCC is characterized by the high uidity under its own weight such that it can be placed without vibration, easily ll small interstices of formwork and be pumped through long distances [2]. The common practice to produce self-compacting concrete is to limit the coarse aggregate content associated with its maximum size and to use the lower water-binder
*

Corresponding author. E-mail address: ozbay@gantep.edu.tr (E. Ozbay).

ratio together with appropriate superplasticizer [3]. In order to achieve a SCC of high uidity and to prevent the segregation and bleeding during transportation and placing, the formulators have employed a high Portland cement content and used superplasticizer and viscosity modifying additives [47]. However, the cost of such concretes remarkably increased associated with the use of high volume of portland cement and chemical admixtures. In some cases the savings in labor cost might oset the increased cost. But the use of mineral admixtures such as y ash, blast furnace slag and/or limestone ller etc. reduced the material cost of the SCCs and also improved fresh and hardened properties of the concretes [8,9]. A number of studies [1016] have been reported in the literature concerning the use of mineral additives to enhance the self-compactibility characteristics and to reduce the material cost of the SCCs. It is obviously known that use of y ash and granulated blast furnace slag decreases the V-funnel ow time, compressive strength

0950-0618/$ - see front matter 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2007.04.021

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E. Ozbay et al. / Construction and Building Materials 22 (2008) 18311840 Table 2 Sieve analysis and physical properties of the ne and coarse aggregates Sieve size (mm) Fine aggregate River sand 16 8 4 2 1 0.5 0.25 Fineness modulus Specic gravity Absorption (%) 100 100 86.6 56.7 37.7 25.7 6.7 2.87 2.66 0.55 Crushed sand 100 100 95.4 63.3 39.1 28.4 16.4 2.57 2.45 0.92 100 31.5 1 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.4 5.66 2.72 0.45 Coarse aggregate

and ultrasonic pulse velocity but they increase the slump ow diameter and electrical resistivity of self-compacting concretes. Silica fume, however, fairy increased the V-funnel ow time, compressive strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity and electrical resistivity but caused a reduction in the slump ow diameter of self-compacting concretes. Inuence of using mineral admixtures on the fresh and hardened properties is well known in the literature. However, there exist no explicit formulations for estimating the properties of self-compacting concretes especially with mineral additives. For this purpose, empirical formulations were proposed by applying the genetic programming on the experimental dataset for prediction of slump ow diameter, V-funnel ow time, compressive strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity and electrical resistivity of self-compacting concretes containing mineral admixtures. 2. Experimental program 2.1. Materials An ASTM Type I Portland cement (PC) was used to produce the various SCC mixtures. In addition, a class F y ash (FA), a ground granulated blast furnace slag (GBS), and a silica fume (SF) were used as mineral admixtures. Table 1 summarizes physical properties and chemical composition of the cement and mineral admixtures used. The coarse aggregate used was river gravel with a nominal maximum size of 16 mm. As ne aggregate, a mixture of natural river sand and crushed limestone was used with a maximum size of 5 mm. The particle size gradation obtained through the sieve analysis and physical properties of the ne and coarse aggregates are presented in Table 2. A polycarboxylic-ether type superplasticizer (SP) with a specic gravity of 1.07 was employed to achieve the desired workability in all concrete mixtures. 2.2. Concrete mixture proportioning A total of 44 concrete mixtures were designed at two different water/binder ratios of 0.32 and 0.44 and total binder contents of 550 kg/m3 and 450 kg/m3, respectively. The
Table 1 Chemical composition and physical properties of cement and mineral admixtures Chemical analyses (%) CaO SiO2 Al2O3 Fe2O3 MgO SO3 K2O Na2O Loss of ignition Specic gravity Blaine neness (cm2/g) Cement 62.58 20.25 5.31 4.04 2.82 2.73 0.92 0.22 3.02 3.15 3260 Silica fume 0.45 90.36 0.71 1.31 0.41 1.52 0.45 3.11 2.2 21080 Fly ash 4.24 56.2 20.17 6.69 1.92 0.49 1.89 0.58 1.78 2.25 2870 GBS 34.12 36.41 10.39 0.69 10.26 0.97 0.35 1.64 2.79 4180

plain concrete mixtures included only ordinary portland cement (PC) as the binder while the remaining mixtures incorporated binary (PC + FA, PC + GBS, PC + SF), ternary (PC + FA + GBS, PC + FA + SF, PC + GBS + SF) and quaternary (PC + FA + GBS + SF) cementitious blends in which a proportion of portland cement was replaced with the mineral admixtures. The replacement ratios for both FA and GBS were 20%, 40%, and 60% while those of SF were 5%, 10%, and 15% by weight of cement. 2.3. Concrete casting and test specimens In the production of SCC mixtures the mixing sequence and duration are so important that the procedure for batching and mixing proposed by Khayat et al. [13] was employed to supply the same homogeneity and uniformity in all mixtures. The batching sequence consisted of homogenizing the ne and coarse aggregates for 30 s in a rotary planetary mixer with a speed of 25 rpm, then adding about half of the mixing water into the mixer and continuing to mix for one more minute. Thereafter, the aggregates were left to absorb the water in the mixer for 1 min. After cement and mineral additives were added, the mixing was resumed for another minute. Finally, the SP with remaining water was introduced, and the concrete was mixed for 3 min and then left for 2 min rest. Eventually, the concrete was mixed for additional two minutes to complete the mixing sequence. Three 150 mm cubes for compressive strength determination and three 100 200 mm cylinders for electrical resistivity measurements were taken from each concrete mixture. Before the compression tests, UPV measurements were also conducted on the same cube samples. The cubes and cylinders were cast full without any compaction and vibration. After 24 h casting, they were demoulded and stored in lime saturated water until the date of testing at 28 days. 2.4. Test procedure The slump ow is used to assess the horizontal free ow (deformability) of SCCs in the absence of obstructions. It

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Fig. 1. Schematically overview of GP [25].

represents the mean diameter of the mass of concrete measured in two perpendicular directions after release of a standard slump cone. According to EFNARC committee (European Federation for Specialist Construction Chemicals and Concrete Systems), slump ow must be within the range of 650800 mm for a mixture to be specied as a self-compacting concrete [17]. The owability and stability of SCCs are determined through V-shaped funnel test [5]. Flow time of a mixture via the V-funnel was determined using a simple procedure: the funnel is completely lled with fresh concrete, and the duration for owing of fresh concrete from opening the orice to complete emptying of the funnel is measured. According to EFNARC, a SCC must have a V-funnel ow time of 612 s. The electrical resistivity of three 100 200 mm concrete cylinders was determined at the age of 28 days. For this

purpose, an electrical resistivity meter was used which produced frequency-independent resistivity measurements [18,19]. Two measurements were taken on the side face of
Table 3 The variables used in model constructions Code X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7 X8 X9 Input variable (kg/m3) Water Cement Fly ash Granulated blast furnace slag Silica fume Natural sand Crushed sand Coarse aggregate Superplasticizer Output Slump ow diameter (cm) V-funnel ow time (s) Compressive strength (MPa) Ultrasonic pulse velocity (m/s) Electrical resistivity (kohm-cm)

Table 4 Ranges of experimental database used in the proposed GEP models Code X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7 X8 X9 Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Parameter Water (kg/m ) Cement (kg/m3) Fly ash (kg/m3) Granulated blast furnace slag (kg/m3) Silica fume (kg/m3) Natural sand (kg/m3) Crushed sand (kg/m3) Coarse aggregate (kg/m3) Superplasticizer (kg/m3) Compressive strength (MPa) Ultrasonic pulse velocity (m/s) Electrical resistivity (kohm-cm) Slump ow diameter (cm) V-funnel ow time (s)
3

Min 176 180 0 0 0 491.0 193.8 827.7 2.8 30.3 4587.2 12.05 63 3.2

Max 198 550 330 330 82.5 592.3 233.8 934.6 12 87.6 5128.2 25.8 75 17

Fig. 2. A typical tree structure for (c0 * (do/d4 )) * Sin(d6 * (Atan(d3)).

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each cylinder, and the average of the six readings on three specimens was reported for each concrete mixture. No measurements were made on the top and bottom faces of
Table 5 GEP parameters used for proposed models p1 Number of generation 2242044 for slump ow; 1982021 for V-funnel ow time; 51584 for compressive strength, 77370 for electrical resistivity; 315504 for UPV p Function set +; ; *; /; ; Power; ex; 10x; ln(x); x2; 3 p 3 x ; x; Sin(x); Cos(x); Arctan(x) Chromosomes 30100 Head size 10 Number of genes 49 Linking function Multiplication, addition Mutation rate 0.044 Inversion rate 0.1 One-point recombination rate 0.3 Two-point recombination rate 0.3 Gene recombination rate 0.1 Gene transposition rate 0.1
76

the cylinders to avoid variations induced by bleeding and repetitive vibration, respectively. The 150 mm concrete cubes were tested for compressive strength and ultrasonic pulse velocity at 28 days as per relevant ASTM standards. The average of three test specimens was computed for the aforementioned concrete properties. 3. Genetic programming Genetic programming was proposed by Koza [20] to automatically extract intelligible relationships in a system and has been used in many applications such as symbolic regression [21,22] and classication [23,24]. A schematically overview of genetic programming is given in Fig. 1. Koza [20] explains the owchart of GP in four main steps: 1. Generate an initial population of random compositions of the functions and terminals of the problem (computer programs).

p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 p8 p9 p10 p11 p12

74 Slump flow diameter [cm]

72

70

68

66
Experimental value [cm] Predicted by GEP [cm]

64 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Experiment number
76 74 Slump flow diameter [cm] 72 70 68 66 64 62 60 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Experiment number
Experimental value [cm] Predicted by GEP

Fig. 3. Evaluation of experimental and predicted slump ow diameter: (a) Train set and (b) test set.

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2. Execute each program in the population and assign it a tness value according to how well it solves the problem. 3. Create a new population of computer programs  copy the best existing programs (reproduction),  create new computer programs by mutation,  create new computer programs by crossover (sexual reproduction),  select an architecture-altering operation from the program stored so far. 4. The best computer program that appeared in any generation, the best so far solution, is designated as the genetic result of genetic programming. The GP creates a population of computer programs with a tree structure. In this study, empirical models are used for prediction of fresh and hardened properties of SCCs. Randomly generated programs are general and hierarchical, varying in size and structure. GPs main goal is to solve a problem by searching highly t computer programs in the space of all possible solutions. This aspect is the key
18 16 14 V funnel flow time [s] 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

for nding near global optimum solutions by keeping many solutions that may potentially to be close to minima (local or global). The creation of initial population is a blind random search of the space dened by the problem. The output of the GP is a program rather than a quantity [26]. 3.1. Brief overview of gene-expression programming Gene-Expression Programming (GEP) is a natural development of GP and it was invented by Ferriera [27]. GEP evolves computer programs of dierent sizes and shapes encoded in linear chromosomes of xed-length. GEP algorithm begins with the random generation of the xed-length chromosomes of each individual for the initial population. Then the chromosomes are expressed and the tness of each individual is evaluated based on the quality of the solution it represents [28]. Chromosomes and expression trees (ETs) are the two main parameters of GEP. The process of information decoding (from the chromosomes of the ETs) is called translation which is based on a set of rules. The genetic

Experimental value [s] Predicted by GEP [s]

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Experiment number 18 16 14 V funnel flow time [s] 12 10 8 6 4 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Experiment number 11 12 13 14 15 16

Experimental value [s] Predicted by GEP [s]

Fig. 4. Evaluation of experimental and predicted V-funnel ow time: (a) Train set and (b) test set.

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code is very simple where there exist one-to-one relationship between the symbols of the chromosome and the function or terminal they represent. GEP program utilizes two dierent languages: the language of genes and the languages of ETs. A noteworthy advantage of this is that it permits the user to infer exactly the phenotype given the sequence of a gene and vice versa; this is called Karva notation [28]. A typical program, representing the expression (c0 * (do/d4)) * Sin(d6 * (Atan(d3)) is shown in Fig. 2. 4. Application of genetic programming (GEP) The database built in the experimental part was used for the modeling of the fresh and hardened properties of SCCs. The major task herein is to dene the hidden function connecting the input variables (X1, X2, X3, . . . , X9) and outputs (Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4 and Y5). The expected empirical models may be written in the form of following equation: Y i f X 1 ; X 2 ; X 3 ; . . . ; X 9 1

The functions obtained by GEP will be used for estimating the characteristic of SCCs in the fresh state in terms of slump and V-funnel ows and in the hardened state through the compressive strength, UPV and electrical resistivity. The variables used in the GEP models were presented in Table 3. In order to construct empirical models and to show the generalization capability of GEP, the database produced in the experimental part is subdivided into two sets, namely training and test sets. The empirical formulations were developed based on the former while the latter was employed to test the proposed models so as to measure their generalization capabilities [28]. Of all 44 concrete mixtures, the training and testing sets consisted of randomly selected 28 and 16 mixtures, respectively. It must be kept in mind that the proposed empirical equations are valid for the ranges of training set given in Table 4. The parameters used within the proposed empirical models were given in Table 5. Even though there might be various dierent combinations of GEP parameters, running the GEP algo-

90 80

Compressive strength [MPa]

70 60 50 40 30 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Experiment number 100 90

Experimental value [MPa] Predicted by GEP [MPa]

Compressive strength [MPa]

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Experiment number 11 12 13 14 15 16
Experimental value [MPa] Predicted by GEP [MPa]

Fig. 5. Evaluation of experimental and predicted compressive strength: (a) Train set and (b) test set.

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rithm for all of them requires very long computational time. Therefore, the GEP parameters were selected intuitively to investigate the performance of GEP models to predict the fresh and hardened properties of SCCs [29]. The functions generated for the best solutions by GEP algorithm to estimate the slump ow diameter, V-funnel ow time, compressive strength, electrical resistivity and ultrasonic pulse velocity of self-compacting concretes were presented in Eqs. (2)(6), respectively Slump flow diameter F 1 F 2 F 3 F 4 F 5 F 1 7:409 X 5 1:433=7:409=X 5 X 9 X 3 7:409 F 2 Sine
LnX 1 2:703X 7 3:694

F 1 CosX 1 CosCosX 1 X 5 =X 2 e6:739 Sin9:639 X 1 F 2 CosX 2 X 7 X 3 5:278 X 3 0:147 X 2 5:278 F 3 Cos0:885 X 6 X 8 =8:579 SinX 8 =8:579 SinX 3 X 9 F 4 SinX 2 Sin9:76 X 8 X 8 F 5 8:459 SinX 2 Sin3:999 X 4 3:999 X 8 Compressive strength F 1 F 2 F 3 F 4 F 5 F 6

3a 3b 3c 3d 3e 4

X 2 2

2 2a

X 7 3:694

2b
3

F 3 LnX 9 X 3 X 3 X 1 0:00338 X 4 2c F 4 CosX 4 X 1 0:998 3:222 X 6 X 4 2d F 5 LnX 3 LnX 1 X 7 =X 2 X 3 X 4 V-funnel flow time F 1 F 2 F 3 F 4 F 5 2e 3

F 1 3:382 5:392 p tanCos X 7 7:302 X 8 X 1 3 4a F 2 5:034 X 9 TanX 2 X 8 X 7 =X 1 0:881 F 3 CosX 3 0:056=X 6 X 5 X 7 TanX 1
1=3

4b 4c

0:056

a 31
Electrical resistivity [kohm-cm] 26

21

16

11
Experimental value [kohm-cm] Predicted by GEP [kohm-cm]

6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Experiment number

b 24
22 Electrical resistivity [kohm-cm] 20 18 16 14 12 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Experiment number 11 12 13 14 15 16

Experimental value [kohm-cm] Predicted by GEP [kohm-cm]

Fig. 6. Evaluation of experimental and predicted electrical resistivity: (a) Train set and (b) test set.

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F 4 X 8 X 3 X 1=46:220 X 7 TanX 9 4d F 5 CosX 9 =8:870 X 1 TanX 5 X 4 5:362 F 6 SinX 1 3:833

2

F 1 X 8 9:984 F 2 X 8 Sin1 X 5 X 1 =9:572 X 1 X 4 X 5 X 2 6:505 X 4 F 3 X 1 X 4 CosX 6 4:032=X 8 F 4 X 3 CosX 2 SinX 1 Cos1:644 X 6 X 2 8:253 F 5 X 8 X 6 Sin1:843 X 7 6:583 6:583 X 1 X 5 X 6 =12:138 F 6 X 8 X 9 X 6 F 7 X 5 SinX 6 7:517 X 4 X 1 =2:402 X 1 X 5 X 6 5. Performance of empirical models
2 2 2 2

6a 6b 6c 6d 6e 6f 6g

4e 4f

Electrical resistivity F 1 F 2 F 3 F 4 F 5 F 1 X 5 CosX 8 X 9 X 9 =X 1

2 4 2

5 5a

5b F 2 CosX 7 8:859 Sin8:859 X 1 p F 3 X 7 63:33 X 8 Sin2:699 X 6 =X 7 5c F 4 X 9 X 5 =X 2 X 3 =1:887 5d F 5 X 4 X 9 18:604 X 4 X 2 X 8 =X 1 Ultrasonic pulse velocity F 1 F 2 F 3 F 4 F 5 F6 F7 6 5e

Predicted values achieved through the proposed GEP formulations are compared with the experimental results

5200

5100

5000 UPV [m/s]

4900

4800

4700
Experimental value [m/s] Predicted by GEP [m/s]

4600 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Experiment number

5200 5100 5000 UPV [m/s] 4900 4800 4700 4600 4500 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Experiment number 11 12 13 14 15 16

Experimental value [m/s] Predicted by GEP [m/s]

Fig. 7. Evaluation of experimental and predicted UPV: (a) Train set and (b) test set.

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for the slump ow diameter, V-funnel ow time, compressive strength, electrical resistivity and ultrasonic pulse velocity in Figs. 37, respectively. It was observed in Fig. 3a that the proposed GEP formulation for slump ow diameter of SCCs is able to closely follow trend seen in the experimental data within both train and test sets. Fig. 4a and b shows the performance of GEP model proposed for the V-funnel ow time of the concretes. Even though Fig. 4 showed that there was a distinction between the predicted and the actual values, the model provided a correlation coecient of about 0.89, irrespective of the data set. Performance of GEP formulation for predicting the compressive strength of SCCs is demonstrated in Fig. 5. Dierent from the case in the V-funnel ow time, this model seemed to be much robust to estimate the compressive strengths of the concretes, irrespective of the data set. This behavior was also seen for the electrical resistivity and UPV of the concretes as shown in Figs. 6 and 7, respectively. It was observed in Fig. 6 that the proposed model for the electrical resistivity provided consistent predictions for both data sets. Similarly, the predicted UPV values of the concretes displayed a strong correlation with the experimental results. Electrical resistivity and UPV are much more correlated to the permeability of the concretes. Therefore, simply prediction of such concrete properties may give an idea about the permeability performance of the concretes. When the statistical outcomes of the models were evaluated, it was observed in Table 6 that the prediction capability of GEP models was much higher for the hardened properties of the concretes than that of fresh properties. Statistical parameters of the test and training sets of GEP formulations are given in the Table 6 in which R corresponds to the coecient of correlation; MSE is the mean square error, RMSE is the root mean square error; MAE is mean absolute error. As seen in Table 6 that correlation coecients of empirical models for both the training and test sets were generally higher than 0.90. When the correlation coecients are considered, the highest R of 0.981 was obtained for the electrical resistivity while the lowest R of 0.89 belonged to the V-funnel ow time.

6. Conclusions This paper presents a new and ecient approach for the developing empirical formulations of slump ow diameter, V-funnel ow time, compressive strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity and electrical resistivity properties of self-compacting concretes including mineral admixtures. Based on the ndings of this study the following conclusion may be drawn: 1. The highest correlation coecient of 0.98 was achieved for electrical resistivity while the V-funnel ow time had the lowest R of 0.89. 2. It was found that the prediction capability of GEP models were much higher for the hardened properties of the concretes than that of fresh properties. 3. The model proposed for the slump ow diameter closely followed the behavior seen in the experimental results. The model had a correlation coecient of as high as 0.92 which seemed to be quite reliable for fresh property. 4. In the case of V-funnel ow time, the predicted and experimental values slightly agreed such that the correlation coecient decreased to as low as 0.89. 5. For both compressive strength and electrical resistivity the proposed models provided quite reliable predictions. The correlation coecients were 0.979 and 0.981 for the former and the latter, respectively. 6. Because of the high precision of the models developed by the GEP approach, an excessive number of experiments and computations can be avoided, which leads to reduction of the costs of product development.

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Table 6 Statistical parameters of GEP formulations Properties Set MSE RMSE MAE Correlation coecient [R] 0.916 0.920 0.891 0.898 0.979 0.979 0.981 0.970 0.903 0.934

Slump ow diameter V-funnel time Compressive strength Electrical resistivity UPV

Train Test Train Test Train Test Train Test Train Test

1.276 1.029 2.937 3.163 7.768 8.488 0.362 0.626 1756.6 1732.1

1.129 1.014 1.713 1.778 2.787 2.913 0.601 0.791 41.911 41.618

0.944 0.879 1.206 1.142 2.097 2.298 0.432 0.552 32.161 27.989

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