Advances in Engineering Software 40 (2009) 334340

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Advances in Engineering Software

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/advengsoft

Predicting the compressive strength of ground granulated blast furnace slag

concrete using articial neural network
Cahit Bilim a, Cengiz D. Atis b, Harun Tanyildizi c,*, Okan Karahan b
a

Civil Engineering Department, Mersin University, 33343 Mersin, Turkey

Civil Engineering Department, Erciyes University, 38039 Kayseri, Turkey
c
Construction Education Department, Frat University, 23100 Elazg, Turkey
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 18 March 2008
Received in revised form 12 May 2008
Accepted 19 May 2008
Available online 16 July 2008
Keywords:
Concrete
Ground granulated blast furnace slag
Compressive strength
Modeling
Prediction
Articial neural networks

a b s t r a c t
In this study, an articial neural networks study was carried out to predict the compressive strength of
ground granulated blast furnace slag concrete. A data set of a laboratory work, in which a total of 45 concretes were produced, was utilized in the ANNs study. The concrete mixture parameters were three different watercement ratios (0.3, 0.4, and 0.5), three different cement dosages (350, 400, and 450 kg/m3)
and four partial slag replacement ratios (20%, 40%, 60%, and 80%). Compressive strengths of moist cured
specimens (22 2 C) were measured at 3, 7, 28, 90, and 360 days. ANN model is constructed, trained and
tested using these data. The data used in the ANN model are arranged in a format of six input parameters
that cover the cement, ground granulated blast furnace slag, water, hyperplasticizer, aggregate and age of
samples and, an output parameter which is compressive strength of concrete. The results showed that
ANN can be an alternative approach for the predicting the compressive strength of ground granulated
blast furnace slag concrete using concrete ingredients as input parameters.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Concrete is the most important element of the construction
industry. Since durability is one of the critical problems to construct reinforced concrete structures with long service life and develop construction technologies due to some environmental and
economical reasons in recent years, it is important to produce
well-designed concrete as a durable construction material. However, large amounts of natural sources such as gravel, sand, water
and cement are used in concrete production. Also, 3 billion tons of
raw materials are used in each year for cement production in the
world [1,2] and, cement manufacturing is responsible for about
2.5% of total worldwide CO2 emissions from industrial sources
[3,4]. High consumption of natural sources, high amount of production of industrial wastes and environmental pollution require
obtaining new solutions for a sustainable development. One of
the most effective ways to minimize the environmental effect is
to use mineral admixtures such as ground granulated blast furnace
slag, y ash and silica fume, as a partial cement replacement. The
use of mineral admixtures in concrete production improves the
compressive strength, pore structure, and permeability of the mortars and concretes [3,5], this is attributed to the pozzolanic reaction [3,6]. This approach will have the potential to reduce costs,
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 424 2370000x4268; fax: +90 424 2367064.
E-mail address: htanyildizi@rat.edu.tr (H. Tanyildizi).
0965-9978/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.advengsoft.2008.05.005

conserve energy, and waste minimization [3,4,7] and the lower cement requirement also leads to a reduction for CO2 generated by
the production of cement [812].
Blast furnace slag is a by-product obtained in the manufacture
of pig iron in the blast furnace and, is formed by the combination
of earthy constituents of iron ore with limestone ux. When the
molten slag is quickly quenched with water in a pond, or cooled
with powerful water jets, it forms into a ne, granular, almost fully
non-crystalline, glassy form known as granulated slag, having latent hydraulic properties. Such granulated slag, when nely
ground and combined with Portland cement, has been found to exhibit excellent cementitious properties [13].
Using ground granulated blast furnace slag as a supplementary
cementitious material in Portland cement concrete has many
advantages, including improved durability, workability and economic benets [14]. When ground granulated blast furnace slag
is used as cement replacement, one improvement is the compressive strength due in part to the neness of the ground granulated
blast furnace slag and to the chemical hydration [1518]. Ground
granulated blast furnace slag, which is latently hydraulic, undergoes hydration reactions in the presence of water and calcium
hydroxide, Ca(OH)2. This secondary pozzolanic reaction yields a
denser microstructure because the Ca(OH)2 is consumed and C
SH paste is formed [15,19,20]. The partial replacement of slag
by weight may decrease the early strength, but increase the later
strength and improve microstructure and durability of hardened

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C. Bilim et al. / Advances in Engineering Software 40 (2009) 334340

Portland cement and concrete very signicantly [21,22]. However,

hydration of ground granulated blast furnace slag is much more
sensitive to temperature than Portland cement and the strength
development of ground granulated blast furnace slag concrete is
considerably slower under standard 20 C curing conditions than
that of Portland cement concrete, although the ultimate strength
is higher for the same waterbinder ratio [2325].
The aim of this paper is to construct an ANN model to predict
the compressive strength of ground granulated blast furnace slag
concrete using concrete ingredients and age. For this purpose, a
computer program was developed in MATLAB. Furthermore, the
results obtained from the ANN model were compared with the
average results of the experiments.

Table 2
Mixed aggregate grading with standard limit
Sieve size
(mm)

% Passed
TS 706 lower
limit

TS 706 medium
limit

TS 706 upper
limit

Mixed
aggregate

16
8
4
2
1
0.5
0.25

100
60
36
21
12
7
3

100
76
56
42
32
20
8

100
88
74
62
49
35
18

100.0
74.7
41.0
23.7
17.4
12.9
3.0

Table 3
Approximate concrete composition for a cubic meter

2. Experimental study
2.1. Properties of materials
2.1.1. Cement
The cement used was ASTM Type I normal Portland cement (PC
42.5 N/mm2) with a specic gravity of 3.16 g/cm3. Initial and nal
setting times of the cement were 2 h and 30 min and 3 h 30 min,
respectively. Its Blaine specic surface area was 3250 cm2/g and
its chemical composition is given in Table 1.
2.1.2. Ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS)
GGBFS was supplied from Iskenderun IronSteel Factory in Turkey. Its chemical oxide composition is given in Table 1. The specic
gravity of GGBFS was 2.81 g/cm3. The GGBFS was ground granulated in Iskenderun Cement Factory to have a Blaine specic surface area about 4250 cm2/g. According to ASTM C 989 [26]
hydraulic activity index, the GGBFS used was classied as a category 80 slag.
2.1.3. Aggregate
Dry and clean natural, river aggregate was used in concrete
mixture. The gravel was 16 mm maximum nominal size with
1.3% water absorption value and its relative density at saturated
surface dry (SSD) condition was 2.70 g/cm3. The water absorption
value of the sand used was 1.8% and its relative density at SSD condition was 2.67 g/cm3. The grading of the mixed aggregate was
presented in Table 2 with the standard limit [27]. Table 2 shows
the aggregate grading is suitable for concrete production.
2.1.4. Plasticizer
A carboxilic-type hyperplasticizing (HP) admixture was used at
various amounts to maintain the workability of fresh concrete. The
amount of hyperplasticizer was given in Table 3.
2.2. Concrete mixture proportions
For each concrete of a cubic meter, approximate concrete composition is given in Table 3. Mixture design is made with according
to absolute volume method given by Turkish Standard TS 802 [28].
At the beginning of the mixture design, binder content (350, 400,
450 kg/m3) and watercement ratio (0.3, 0.4, 0.5) were chosen as
constant, then, the volume of aggregate was determined for each
control PC concrete by assuming 2% air is trapped in fresh concrete

Table 1
Chemical composition of cement and GGBFS (%)
Oxide

SiO2

Al2O3

Fe2O3

CaO

MgO

SO3

LOI

Na2O

K2O

Cement
GGBFS

19.71
36.70

5.20
14.21

3.73
0.98

62.91
32.61

2.54
10.12

2.72
0.99

0.96

0.25
0.42

0.90
0.76

Mixture

PC
(kg/m3)

GGBFS
(kg/m3)

W
(lt/m3)

HP
(kg/m3)

Agg.
(kg/m3)

350-0.3-00
350-0.3-20
350-0.3-40
350-0.3-60
350-0.3-80
350-0.4-00
350-0.4-20
350-0.4-40
350-0.4-60
350-0.4-80
350-0.5-00
350-0.5-20
350-0.5-40
350-0.5-60
350-0.5-80

350
280
210
140
70
350
280
210
140
70
350
280
210
140
70

70
140
210
280

70
140
210
280

70
140
210
280

105
105
105
105
105
140
140
140
140
140
175
175
175
175
175

12.25
11.55
8.75
7.00
5.60
5.25
4.20
3.50
1.75
2.80
0.70

2030
2025
2015
2010
2000
1940
1930
1925
1915
1910
1845
1840
1830
1825
1815

400-0.3-00
400-0.3-20
400-0.3-40
400-0.3-60
400-0.3-80
400-0.4-00
400-0.4-20
400-0.4-40
400-0.4-60
400-0.4-80
400-0.5-00
400-0.5-20
400-0.5-40
400-0.5-60
400-0.5-80

400
320
240
160
80
400
320
240
160
80
400
320
240
160
80

80
160
240
320

80
160
240
320

80
160
240
320

120
120
120
120
120
160
160
160
160
160
200
200
200
200
200

16.00
14.00
9.60
6.00
4.80
6.00
4.00
4.00
2.40
3.60
0.40

1950
1940
1935
1925
1915
1845
1835
1825
1820
1810
1735
1730
1720
1710
1705

450-0.3-00
450-0.3-20
450-0.3-40
450-0.3-60
450-0.3-80
450-0.4-00
450-0.4-20
450-0.4-40
450-0.4-60
450-0.4-80
450-0.5-00
450-0.5-20
450-0.5-40
450-0.5-60
450-0.5-80

450
360
270
180
90
450
360
270
180
90
450
360
270
180
90

90
180
270
360

90
180
270
360

90
180
270
360

135
135
135
135
135
180
180
180
180
180
225
225
225
225
225

18.00
14.40
11.70
9.00
8.10
4.50
3.60
2.25
2.25
1.35

1865
1860
1850
1840
1830
1750
1740
1730
1720
1710
1630
1620
1610
1600
1590

suggested by TS 802. The volume of aggregate was used to determine the aggregate weight. GGBFS concrete was produced by modifying PC concrete. The modication is made by replacing the
cement with GGBFS for a given ratio on mass basis. The increase
in the paste volume due to inclusion of GGBFS was considered.
Then, the volume of aggregate for each GGBFS concrete was compensated accordingly using absolute volume method. Measured

336

C. Bilim et al. / Advances in Engineering Software 40 (2009) 334340

unit weight of fresh concrete was in the range of between 2350 and
2550 kg/m3, however, theoretical fresh unit weight determined
from mixture proportions was in the range of between 2270 and
2500 kg/m3. Workability value of fresh concrete obtained from
ow table was in the order of 4050 cm.

Table 6
Compressive strength of GGBFS concrete for 450 kg/m3 (MPa)
w/c ratio

GGBFS (%)

28

90

360

0.30

0
20
40
60
80

63.8
58.0
49.8
36.8
26.3

75.7
72.1
66.4
63.2
50.2

80.3
81.8
83.8
80.6
66.3

85.7
90.1
91.4
92.5
77.4

92.8
95.9
96.8
101.3
78.4

0.40

0
20
40
60
80

53.0
45.8
35.9
26.9
22.6

59.2
60.3
56.3
38.6
36.7

64.3
73.5
66.4
61.8
46.8

71.0
82.3
81.0
73.4
54.6

79.4
86.6
84.6
80.6
58.9

0.50

0
20
40
60
80

25.8
21.3
16.7
13.0
9.0

36.6
33.2
28.3
20.8
17.5

48.7
50.4
49.3
39.5
27.7

50.5
56.2
53.4
49.1
35.0

60.2
66.7
65.1
57.4
39.6

2.3. Test procedure

Three cubic samples were used for each age. Samples (with
150 mm a side) produced from fresh concrete were demoulded
after a day, then, samples were cured at 22 2 C with 100% RH until the samples were used for compressive strength measurement
at 3, 7, 28, 90 and 360 days. Compressive strength of each specimen was determined using TS-EN 12390-1, 2, 3, 4 [2932]. Compressive strength measurements were carried out using ELE
International ADR 3000 hydraulic press with a capacity of
3000 kN, the loading rate was 0.3 MPa/s.
3. Experimental results
The compressive strength of the concrete studied were presented in Tables 46. In general, Tables 46, show that, for all slag
replacement ratio, strength contribution of slag to concrete is low

Table 4
Compressive strength of GGBFS concrete for 350 kg/m3 (MPa)
w/c ratio

GGBFS (%)

Age (days)
3

28

90

360

0.30

0
20
40
60
80

61.0
49.1
48.3
31.9
22.0

69.4
68.3
64.2
57.3
45.8

75.8
81.4
81.0
73.3
62.7

83.9
86.8
87.8
81.2
70.6

90.0
86.9
91.8
85.7
74.7

0.40

0
20
40
60
80

45.9
39.0
31.9
27.3
18.9

54.8
50.9
49.1
46.9
37.3

63.9
65.8
67.2
61.8
50.4

71.3
73.7
76.3
74.0
58.9

72.8
76.7
78.2
79.1
62.6

0.50

0
20
40
60
80

38.0
29.8
24.3
16.8
12.1

44.5
41.2
36.9
28.7
21.8

53.6
57.0
55.9
45.1
29.9

61.5
65.4
65.9
58.3
38.1

66.0
69.8
71.7
65.9
39.1

Table 5
Compressive strength of GGBFS concrete for 400 kg/m3 (MPa)
w/c ratio

GGBFS (%)

Age (days)
3

28

90

360

0.30

0
20
40
60
80

62.5
51.4
48.5
32.3
24.5

73.8
69.0
64.5
58.3
48.5

80.7
81.4
82.0
77.8
67.7

85.2
90.1
88.3
79.0
76.2

89.9
97.1
92.4
89.2
82.9

0.40

0
20
40
60
80

49.2
41.0
33.4
26.0
22.2

53.7
51.5
50.6
45.6
38.6

63.9
66.0
66.9
61.1
53.1

67.9
72.4
77.9
75.1
56.8

70.6
76.4
79.0
82.8
68.0

0.50

0
20
40
60
80

26.2
22.9
17.4
14.4
8.4

34.9
34.2
28.6
23.8
18.7

51.4
52.6
51.6
40.1
25.3

56.8
61.4
57.9
49.6
31.6

64.1
65.8
65.2
56.0
34.3

Age (days)

up to 7 days of age. However, compressive strength of concrete

containing slag concrete is higher than that of control normal Portland cement concrete for 20% and 40% replacement ratios at 28
days, three months and one year. Compressive strength of slag concrete is found to be equivalent to that of control normal Portland
cement concrete for 60% replacement ratio at 28 days and beyond.
However, compressive strength of slag is found to be satisfactory
when compared to control normal Portland cement concrete for
80% replacement ratio.
In addition, the strength loss of concrete with increasing the
slag replacement level is more marked at early ages up to 7 days.
However, this negative effect disappears at later ages (28 days
and beyond) and concrete containing slag exhibits an equivalent
or a greater nal strength than that of control normal Portland cement concrete. For example, when the concrete made with 350 kg/
m3 cement dosage and 0.40 waterbinder ratio is examined, the
strength losses at 3 days are 15% for 20% slag replacement ratio,
and 30% for 40% slag replacement ratio. On the other hand, while
the compressive strength of slag concrete at 28 days for 20% slag
replacement ratio is 3% more than that of control normal Portland
cement concrete, the accrual for concrete containing 40% slag
replacement ratio is 5% approximately.
Furthermore, when compared to control normal Portland cement concrete, the increase in the watercementitious material ratio decreases more the strength of concrete having particularly
high percentages of slag. For instance, in comparison with control
normal Portland cement concrete, the strength losses at 28 days for
concrete containing 450 kg/m3 cement dosage and 80% slag
replacement ratio are increasing 17%, 27% and 43%, for 0.30, 0.40
and 0.50 waterbinder ratios, respectively.
The results obtained in this laboratory research which conducted to the concretes made with three different cement dosages
(350, 400, 450 kg/m3) and three different waterbinder ratios
(0.30, 0.40, 0.50) show that, slag replacement by weight decreases
the strength of concretes at early ages when compared to control
Portland cement concrete. This decrease observed at the beginning
is due to the relatively slower rate of pozzolanic hydration process.
But at later ages slag, which is latently hydraulic, undergoes hydration reactions in the presence of water with calcium hydroxide,
Ca(OH)2. This secondary pozzolanic reaction yields a denser microstructure because the Ca(OH)2 is consumed and CSH paste is
formed. As a result, concrete containing slag exhibits an equivalent
or a greater nal strength than that of control normal Portland cement concrete.

C. Bilim et al. / Advances in Engineering Software 40 (2009) 334340

of activation functions. Usually nonlinear activation functions such

as sigmoid, step are used. ANNs are trained by experience, when an
unknown input is applied to the network it can generalize from
past experiences and produce a new result [3335].

4. Articial neural network model for prediction of

experimental results
Articial neural networks (ANNs) are biologically inspired and
mimic the human brain. They are consisting of a large number of
simple processing elements called as neurons. A schematic diagram for an articial neuron model is given in Fig. 1.
Let X = (X1, X2. . .Xn) represent the n input applied to the neuron.
Where Wj represents the weight for input Xj and b is a bias, then
the output of the neuron is given by Eq. (1). These neurons are connected with connection link. Each link has a weight that is multiplied by transmitted signal in network. Each neuron has an
activation function to determine the output. There are many kinds

Xm

W3

u
f (.)

Fig. 1. Articial neuron model.

Hidden
Layer

Output
Layer

Inputs

bias

bias

Fig. 2. Multilayer feed-forward neural network structure.

Input layer
Cement

Blast furnace slag

xj wj  b and V f u

Hidden layer

Output layer

Hyperplasticizing
Compressive Strength
Aggregate

Water

Age

Artical neural networks are systems that are deliberately constructed to make use of some organizational principles resembling
those of the human brain [3335]. They represent the promising
new generation of information processing systems.
When designing an ANN model, a number of considerations
must be taken into account. At rst the suitable structure of the
ANN model must be chosen. Then, the activation function need
to be determined. The number of layers and the number of units
in each layer must be chosen. Generally desired model consists
of a number of layers. The most general model assumes complete
interconnections between all units. These connections can be bidirectional or unidirectional. ANN can create its own organization or
representation of the information it receives during learning time
[3335]. There are many kind of ANN structure. One of these is
multilayer feed-forward ANN and is shown in Fig. 2.
In this study, the problem is proposed to network models by
means of six inputs and one output parameter. The parameters
such as amount of cement, amount of blast furnace slag, amount
of hyperplasticizer, amount of aggregate, amount of water and
age of samples were selected as input variables. The model output
variable was the compressive strength of the concrete. A data set
including 225 data samples obtained from experimental studies
were used for articial neural networks. The data were normalized
by dividing with max values. The back propagation learning algorithm has been used in a feed-forward, single hidden layer neural
network. ANN architecture used for this study is given in Fig. 3.
The all algorithms of ANN were used for this study but the
LevenbergMarquardt (LM) algorithm, scaled conjugate gradient
(SCG) algorithm, one step secant backpropagation algorithm
(OSS) and BFGS quasi-Newton backpropagation algorithm were
just learning. The computer program was performed under MATLAB software using the neural network toolbox. In the training,
the number of neuron on the hidden layer is fteen. A data set

Wn

Input
Layer

m
X
j0

X2 W1
X W2
3

X0

X1

337

14

15
Fig. 3. ANN architecture.

C. Bilim et al. / Advances in Engineering Software 40 (2009) 334340

including 225 data samples obtained from experimental studies

were used for articial neural networks. From these, 113 data patterns were used for training the network, and the remaining 112
patterns were randomly selected and used as the test data set.
The results are shown in Figs. 411.

1.2

Neural Networks Results

338

R = 0.94
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

Experimental Results
Fig. 7. Linear relationship between measured and predicted compressive strengths
for scaled conjugate gradient algorithm.

Fig. 4. Training performance for LevenbergMarquardt algorithm.

Neural Networks Results

1.2
1

R2 = 0.96
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2

Fig. 8. Training performance for one step secant backpropagation algorithm.

0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

Experimental Results

Neural Networks Results

1.2

Fig. 5. Linear relationship between measured and predicted compressive strengths

for LevenbergMarquardt algorithm.

R2 = 0.92
0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

Experimental Results
Fig. 9. Linear relationship between experimental and articial neural network
compressive strengths for one step secant backpropagation algorithm.

Fig. 6. Training performance for scaled conjugate gradient algorithm.

Figs. 5, 7, 9 and 11 present the measured compressive strengths

versus predicted compressive strengths by ANN model with R2
coefcients. It can be seen from Fig. 5 which present that ANN
model predicts the compressive strength of concrete containing
blast furnace slag with a R2 of 0.96. However, Figs. 7, 9 and 11 show
that ANN model predict the compressive strength of concrete con-

C. Bilim et al. / Advances in Engineering Software 40 (2009) 334340

339

4. The different algorithms of ANN tested for this study, the LevenbergMarquardt algorithm is found to be the best learning algorithm. The ANN model predicts the compressive strength of
concrete containing blast furnace slag with the high correlation
coefcient. Therefore, the results show that the ANN can be
used to predict the compressive strength of ground granulated
blast furnace slag concrete either in the long or short term using
the ingredients of concrete. It should be noted that the results
obtained by using ANNs model are given for a constant
workability.

References

Fig. 10. Training performance for BFGS quasi-Newton backpropagation algorithm.

Neural Networks Results

1.2
1
R2 = 0.95

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

Experimental Results
Fig. 11. Linear relationship between measured and predicted compressive
strengths for BFGS quasi-Newton backpropagation algorithm.

taining blast furnace slag with R2 of 0.94, 0.92 and 0.95, respectively. The training performance during the training process is given in Figs. 4, 6, 8 and 10 where the variation of mean-square
error with training epochs is illustrated. It can be seen from these
gures that LevenbergMarquardt algorithm is the best learning
algorithm for this study.
5. Conclusions
The following conclusions were drawn from this investigation:
1. Slag replacement by weight decreases the strength of concretes
in short term when compared to control Portland cement concrete. However, in long term, concrete containing slag exhibits
an equivalent or a greater nal strength than that of control
normal Portland cement concrete.
2. The strength loss caused by increasing slag replacement level is
more evident at early ages. However, the strength loss disappears in long term and, concrete containing slag develops
equivalent or higher strength than that of control normal Portland cement concrete.
3. When compared to control normal Portland cement concrete,
the increase in the watercementitious material ratio decreases
more the strength of concrete having particularly high percentages of slag.

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