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Building and Environment 42 (2007) 24172420

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The effect of cylindrical specimen size on the compressive

strength of concrete
S- emsi Yazc, Gozde Inan Sezer
Civil Engineering Department, Ege University, 35100 Izmir, Turkey
Received 20 January 2006; received in revised form 10 April 2006; accepted 22 June 2006

Abstract
In this study, the inuence of size and capping type of cylindrical specimens on compressive strength of concrete is investigated. For
this purpose, eight series of concrete mixtures were designed to have water/cement ratios of 37%, 42%, 47%, 48%, 55%, 62%, 71% and
77% (by volume). Three hundred and eighty-four cylindrical specimens having dimensions of 150/300 and 120/200 mm were casted. At
the end of 28-day standard curing period, the uniaxial compressive strength of capped and uncapped specimens was determined. Cement,
gypsum and sulphur are used as capping materials. The results of the experimental study reveal that the suitable average conversion
factor (the ratio of compressive strength of 100/200 mm cylinder to 150/300 mm cylinderfc100/fc150) can be taken as 103%. Linear and
nonlinear regression analyses were employed between fc100 and fc150. Linear and nonlinear regression analyses exhibited better
performance.
r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Specimen size; Conversion factor; Capping type; Compressive strength; Concrete

1. Introduction
In addition to cubic specimens, cylindrical specimens of
various dimensions are used in the determination of
compressive strength of concrete. About 150/300 mm
cylindrical specimen is generally adopted as standard
specimen for determination of compressive strength of
concrete [13]. Except the standard cylinder specimen,
specimens of lower dimensions are also used because they
are lightweight and small, consume less material, require
lower area for curing period and lower cast costs and need
low-capacity press. About 100/200 mm size is the most
common type of cylindrical specimen size of these specimens [4]. Because of differences between compressive
strengths of 100/200 and 150/300 mm cylindrical specimens, a number of researchers have proposed various
conversion factors depending on the type of concrete.
These coefcients change between 0.93 and 1.06 depending
on the type of concrete [115]. In general, it is assumed that
Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 232 3886026; fax: +90 232 3425629.

E-mail addresses: semsiyazici@gmail.com, semsiyazicil@yahoo.com

(S- . Yazc).
0360-1323/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2006.06.014

the compressive strength of 100/200 mm cylindrical specimens is higher than 150/300 mm cylinder specimens to a
degree of 5% [3].
The primary objective of this study is to establish
relationship between the 28-day compressive strength of
150/300 mm and 100/200 mm cylinder for the concretes of
eight different strength levels, which have a water/cement
(W/C) ratio ranging between 0.37 and 0.77.
2. Experimental study
2.1. Materials
In this study, an ordinary portland cement (CEM I
42.5R) was used as a cementitious materials. Its specic
surface is 3237 cm2/g and specic gravity is 3.15. Its initial
and nal setting times are 135 and 185 min, respectively.
The coarse and ne aggregates were crushed limestone.
They were separated into three different size fractions as
0/5 mm (AI), 5/15 mm (AII) and 15/25 mm (AIII). SSD
specic gravity of AI, AII and AIII aggregates are 2.70,
2.69 and 2.60, respectively. The absorption capacity of AI,

ARTICLE IN PRESS
S- . Yazc, G. Inan Sezer / Building and Environment 42 (2007) 24172420

2418

AII and AIII aggregates are 0.62%, 0.72% and 1.78%,

respectively. Aggregates recombined to a specied uniform
grading during mixing. The blend consisted of 45% AI,
35% AII and 20% AIII. Fineness modulus of the blended
mixture is 4.38. The blend conforms to ASTM C33
aggregate grading standard.
2.2. Preparation and casting of specimens
The proportioning and description of the concrete
mixtures are summarized in Table 1. Eight series of
Table 1
Mix proportions and description of concrete mixtures
Mixture

W/C
ratio

Batch weight (kg/m3)

Cement

Average compressive strength (MPa)

M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8

0.77
0.71
0.62
0.55
0.50
0.47
0.42
0.37

230
250
290
328
371
410
460
521

Water

177
178
180
180
186
193
193
193

Unit
weight
(kg/m3)

Aggregates
AIII

AII

AI

396
393
385
378
367
357
348
338

691
685
671
659
641
622
607
589

858
851
833
819
796
773
755
732

3. Results and discussion

2352
2357
2359
2364
2361
2355
2363
2373

50
150/300 cylinder
40

100/200 cylinder

30
20
10
0
0.77

0.71

0.62

0.55
0.48
W/C ratio (%)

0.47

0.42

concrete mixtures were designed to have a slump between

100 and 120 mm. From each batch, 24 specimens were
prepared in 100/200 mm dimensions and 24 specimens were
prepared in 150/300 mm dimensions. Sum of 384 cylindrical specimens were casted. The specimens are prepared,
compacted and cured in accordance with ASTM C31.
During the 28-day standard curing period, temperature of
curing room was measured between 17 and 20 1C and
relative humidity was measured as 7575%. At the end of
28-day, compressive strength was performed on six
uncapped, 18 capped specimens. Cement, gypsum and
sulphur pastes are used as a capping material as
recommended in ASTM C617. Uniaxial compressive
strength test is performed in accordance with ASTM
C39. In order to determine the compressive strength of
specimens, a hydraulic press of 200 ton static loading
capacity is used. The loading speed is 5 kN/s for all
specimens.

0.37

Fig. 1. Average compressive strength of capped and uncapped specimens.

Average compressive strengths of capped and uncapped

specimens are shown in Fig. 1. As shown in gure, average
compressive strength of concretes varies between 14 and
47 MPa. Besides, the average compressive strength of
100/200 mm cylinders is generally higher than 150/300 mm
cylinder specimens. Reasons of this phenomena can be
expressed as: (1) in the uniaxial compression test, smaller
contact area between the specimen surface and steel platen
of test machine resulting in lower friction-based shear
forces in small specimens. (2) By means of statistical
approach, the number of microcracks and defects in
smaller specimens are fewer than bigger specimens,
resulting in a rise in density [2,7].
The values of the ratio of compressive strength of
100/200 mm cylinder to 150/300 mm cylinder (fc100/fc150)
are shown in Table 2. The averages of conversion factor are
calculated as 104.6, 104.3, 102.5 and 100.9 for uncapped,
cement-capped, gypsum-capped and sulphur-capped specimens, respectively. Also, fc100/fc150 ratios which vary
between 84% and 132% obtained from the previous
studies are given in Table 3. Except for the values reported
in references [12] and [16], fc100/fc150 ratios obtained in this

Table 2
fc100/fc150 ratios in accordance with W/C ratio
Mixture code

M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8

W/C ratio

0.77
0.71
0.62
0.55
0.48
0.47
0.42
0.37

fc100/fc150 ratio (%)

Un-capped

Cement-capped

Gypsum-capped

Sulphur-capped

Average

97.9
108.9
104.0
108.4
107.5
108.2
98.3
103.4

100.0
107.2
103.4
108.5
108.3
106.7
101.6
98.9

89.7
105.8
104.7
108.0
106.2
101.4
100.0
104.2

93.6
100.0
98.0
106.3
105.9
102.9
101.1
99.1

95.3
105.5
102.5
107.8
107.0
104.8
100.3
101.4

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S- . Yazc, G. Inan Sezer / Building and Environment 42 (2007) 24172420
Table 3
fc100/fc150 ratios obtained from previous studies
Ref.

Strength level (MPa)

fc100/fc150 ratio

[2]
[3]
[5]
[6]
[8]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]

72110
3652
846
93

2380
2436
72131
4880
28

103104
105
105
98106
84132
101
86
111
4100
109
93
103

2419

study are supported by previous studies. The results of this

study also reveal that a certain conversion factor cannot be
proposed and suitable average conversion factor can be
taken as 103%.
4. Regression analysis

Table 4
Results of linear and nonlinear regression analyses
No.

Model

R2

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

Y a1x5+a2x4+a3x3+a4x2+a5x+a6
Y a1x4+a2x3+a3x2+a4x+a5
Y a1x3+a2x2+a3x+a4
Y a1x2+a2x+a3
Y exp(a1+a2x+a3x2)
Y 1/(a1+a2x+a3x2)
Y a1/(1+a2x+a3x2)
Y a1(1+x)a2
Y a1xa2
Y a1x+a2
Y xa1
Y a1 ax2
Y exp(a1+a2x)
Y a1/(1+a2x)
Y a1+a2log(x)
Y a1+a2/log(x)
Y a1+a2/x

0.996
0.994
0.993
0.993
0.993
0.992
0.992
0.990
0.989
0.989
0.989
0.987
0.987
0.949
0.943
0.893
0.856

Linear and nonlinear regression analyses were employed

for the characterization of the mapping between fc100 and
fc150. In this purpose, 17 regression equations (Table 4)
were developed. In Table 4, y is fc150 (MPa), x is fc100
(MPa), and a denotes coefcient vector. Resulting regression coefcients are given in Table 5. As can be seen from
Table 4, linear and nonlinear regression analyses exhibited
better performance varying within 0.996 and 0.856 in terms
of coefcient of determination (R2) values.
Additionally, Eqs. (10) and (1) were selected to be
representative linear and nonlinear regression equations,
respectively. Scatter plots for these two regression models
are presented in Fig. 2. As can be seen from Fig. 2,
discrepancies from the line of equality in nonlinear model
(Model 1) and linear model (Model 10) are very small.
Therefore, it can be concluded that nonlinear and linear
analysis exhibited better performance. But nonlinear
equation (Eq. (1)) has a slightly better performance than
linear equation (Eq. (10)).
5. Conclusions
The following conclusions can be drawn from the
experimental study:

The reason why the fc100/fc150 ratios of capped and

uncapped specimens are similar can be expressed as the

Table 5
Coefcients of linear and nonlinear regression analyses
No.

Coefcients
a1

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

8.68  106
2.46  105
1.62  105
0.0074
1.9888
0.1031
9.6991
0.7679
0.9025
0.9728
0.9916
10.0587
2.3084
14.6122
57.6660
108.8308
53.0346

a2
0.0013
0.0030
0.0089
0.5232
0.0545
0.0031
0.0302
1.0566
1.0199
0.1082
1.0338
0.0333
0.0150
26.1051
260.6252
607.7550

a3

a4

a5

a6

0.0733
0.1215
0.4811
5.7862
0.0003
2.93  105
0.0003

2.0072
2.8571
6.1466

25.4992
9.0225

134.7765

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S- . Yazc, G. Inan Sezer / Building and Environment 42 (2007) 24172420

2420

50

45

Estimated fc150 values (MPa)

Estimated fc150 values (MPa)

50

40
35
30
25
20
15

40
35
30
25
20
15
10

10
10
(a)

45

20
30
40
Measured fc150 values (MPa)

50

10
(b)

20
30
40
Measured fc150 values (MPa)

50

Fig. 2. Scatter plots (a) nonlinear regression, Model 1 (b) linear regression, Model 10.




rather smooth preparation of uncapped specimen

surfaces.
The highest and lowest fc100/fc150 ratios are obtained at
cement-capped specimens and sulphur-capped specimens, respectively.
Taking into consideration all the 384 experiments, the
average fc100/fc150 ratios can be taken as 103% for the
specimens having compressive strength between 14 and
50 Mpa.
Linear and nonlinear regression analyses were employed
for the characterization of the mapping between fc100
and fc150. Linear and nonlinear regression analyses
exhibited better performance varying within 0.996 and
0.856 in terms of coefcient of determination (R2)
values.

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