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Research Paper RELATION BETWEEN WORKABILITY AND COMPRESSIVE

STRENGTH OF SELF-COMPACTING CONCRETE

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 International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Studies E-ISSN2249–8974

Research Paper
RELATION BETWEEN WORKABILITY AND COMPRESSIVE
STRENGTH OF SELF-COMPACTING CONCRETE
1
M.A.FArediwala 2M.A.Jamnu

Address for Correspondence

1
Student of M.E. (CASAD), 2Professor, Department of Applied Mechanics Government Engineering College
Dahod-389151 Gujarat, India
ABSTRACT
This paper presents the results of an experimental research on the workability and compressive strength of self-
compacting concrete. The work focused on concrete mixes having water/binder ratios of 0.40 and 0.50, which contained
constant total binder contents of 500 kg/m3and 550 kg/m3, respectively. The concrete mixes contained three different
dosages of a superplasticizer based on carboxylic with fly ash. The percentage of fly ash that replaced cement in this
research was 15%. The workability tests utilized in this research were the slump flow, V-funnel and L-box which can be
used to evaluate the passing ability of self-compacting concrete. Based upon the experimental results, there are some linear
relationships between compressive strength and each of the workability tests executed here.
KEYWORDS: concrete, self-compacting, workability, superplasticizer, fly ash.
INTRODUCTION to find the effect of the dosages of superplacticizers
With the preface of the new generation of on the fresh and hardened properties of the mixes.
superplasticizers, self-compacting concrete has been MATERIALS AND MIX PROPORTIONS
industrialized. This type of concrete having This part of the paper presents the specifications of
advanced viscosity and workability properties can the mixes used for obtaining the workability and
easily fill the moulds without the necessity of using compressive strength of self-compacting concrete.
vibrators. High volume of mineral powder is a The cementitious materials used were ordinary
necessity for a proper self-compacting concrete Portland cement (OPC) and fly ash (SF). Natural
design. It is worth adding that Ho et al. have river sand and Aggregate with a nominal maximum
investigated the use of quarry dust in self- size of MSA20 mm were used as the aggregates.
compacting concrete. Moreover, the influence of The control mixes were cast using OPC, while the
limestone powder on self- compacting concrete is other mixes were prepared by replacing 15% of the
investigated recently. For this purpose, natural or cement with fly ash on mass-for-mass basis. The
artificial mineral additives such as limestone water/binder ratios were 0.40 and 0.50 respectively.
powder, fly ash, silica fume and blast furnace slag The same mix proportions were used for the
can be used too. In this study, the effects of concrete mixes with the dosages of 7, 8.5 and 10
replacing 15% of cement by fly ash on fresh and L/cum of a kind of carboxylic based superplasticizer.
hardened properties of self - compacting concrete It is worth noting that the effects of superplasticizers
have been investigated. on the mechanical strength of mortars have been
It is worth noting that extensive investigations on studied recently. The details of the mix proportions
the workability of self-compacting concrete have of the present research are given in Table 1. As a
been made recently. Kayat et al. reported that the L- result of using different dosages of the
box, U-box, and J-ring tests can be used to evaluate superplasticizer, the fresh properties of the mixes
the passing ability of self-compacting concrete and, were quite different.
to a certain extent, the deformability and resistance Table 1: Mix proportions of concrete containing
to segregation. When combined with the slump flow different water to cementations materials ratios
test, the L-box test is very suitable for the quality
control of on-site self-compacting concrete.
It is apparent that workability depends on a
number of interacting factors such as water Water-Cement ratios-0.40 and 0.50 L/cum
content, aggregate type and grading, aggregate to Superplasticizer dosages- 7, 8.5, 10 L/cum

cement ratio, kind and dosage of superplasticizers, WORKABILITY OF FRESH CONCRETE

and the fineness of cement. The main factors on
self-compacting concrete are the water and
superplasticizer contents of the mix since by
simply adding them the interparticle lubrication
is increased. In this research, the water contents of
the mixes having the same water to binder ratios
were constant and the dosages of the superlasticizer
were 07,8.5 and 10 L/Cum. Moreover, to achieve
optimum conditions for minimum voids, or with
maximum density with no segregation, the
influence of the aggregate type and grading has to be
considered. In this study, the quality and grading of
the aggregates in all the mixtures were the same. In
other words, the main objective of this research was
The strict definition of workability is the amount of
useful internal work necessary to produce full
compaction. The useful internal work is a physical
property of concrete and is the work or energy
required to overcome the internal friction between
the individual particles of the mixture. Because of
the very high workability of self-compacting
concrete, it needs no external vibration and can
spread into place, fill the framework and
encapsulate reinforcement without any bleeding
or segregation. In other words, to ensure that
reinforcement can be encapsulated and that the
framework can be filled completely, a favourable
workability is essential for self-compacting concrete.

IJAERS/Vol. I/ Issue III/April-June, 2012/09-11

 International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Studies
Moreover, aggregate particles in self- compacting
concrete are required to have uniform
distribution in the specimen and the minimum
segregation risk should be maintained during the
process of transportation and placement.
Because the strength of concrete is adversely and
significantly affected by the presence of voids in the
compacted mass, it is vital to achieve a maximum
possible density. This requires a sufficient
workability or virtually full compaction. It is
obvious that the presence of voids in concrete
reduces the density and greatly reduces the strength,
which means the presence of 5 percent of voids can
lower the strength by as much as 30 percent. This
research compares the compressive strengths of self-
compacting and Workability.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this part of the paper, the experimental results of
self-compacting mixes on compressive strength and
workability are discussed. The workability tests
performed in this research were ordinary slump,
slump flow, L-box and V-funnel
Workability of fresh concrete
There is no acceptable test, which can directly
measure the workability as defined earlier. The
following methods give a measure of workability
indirectly. In fact, these methods have found
universal acceptance and their values are because of
their simplicity and their ability to detect the
variations in the uniformity of a mix.
To better evaluate the workability of self-compacting
concrete, both dynamic and static stability tests are
usually required. Dynamic stability is concerned with
the properties of self-compacting concrete during the
process of mixing, transportation, and casting, while
static stability deals with the properties of self-
compacting concrete during the period from casting
to initial set. This research concentrates on dynamic
stability tests as follows. It should be noted that
computational modelling of concrete flow has been
overviewed recently
Slump flow test
Since the slump test is not suitable for the analysis of
the fluidity of self-compacting concrete, the slump
flow test is adopted. The testing apparatus consists of
a normal slump cone and a steel plate with the
dimensions of 900 × 900 mm. With this apparatus,
the time for self-compacting concrete to spread to
500 mm in diameter, T, and the final slump flow
diameters in the two orthogonal directions can be
measured. According to EFNARC, for class 1 self-
compacting concrete, the slump flow diameter is 550-
650 mm; for class 2 self-compacting concrete the
slump flow diameter is 600-750 mm; for class 3 self-
compacting concrete the slump flow diameter is 760-
850 mm. It is worth noting that the slump flow test is
recently modelled using artificial neural networks.
The results of slump flow tests are presented in Table
V-funnel test
The apparatus for V-funnel test is described by Wu et
al. With this apparatus, the total time for self-
compacting concrete to flow through the V-funnel,
can be measured. The V-funnel flow test is to
IJAERS/Vol. I/ Issue III/April-June, 2012/09-11
E-ISSN2249–8974
evaluate the fluidity of self-compacting concrete to
change its path and to pass through a constrict area.
According to EFNARC, for class 1 self-compacting
concrete, T is smaller than 8 s and for class 2 self-
compacting concrete T is 9-25 s. The measured
values of T are shown in Table 2.
L-Box test
The L-box test is used to evaluate the fluidity of self-
compacting concrete and its ability to pass through
steel bars. The L-box consists of a “chimney” section
and a “channel” section as described by Wu et al.
With the L-box, the height of concrete in chimney, h,
the height of concrete in the channel section, h21, and
the time for self-compacting concrete to reach 40 mm
from three steel bars, T, can be measured. According
to EFNARC, when the ratio of h2 to h is larger than
0.8, self-compacting concrete has good passing
ability. However, no specification for T1 is given in
EFNARC or other codes. In most previous studies on
self-compacting concrete, T400 is used to estimate
the flow velocity of self-compacting concrete. The
measured values of h2/h are shown in Table 2.
Compressive strength
For concrete stored in water, the development of
compressive strength with age is shown in Table 3. It
is clear that the compressive strength development of
concrete mixtures containing different dosages of the
utilized superplasticizer were quite different.
According to Tables 2 and 3, it can be said that as the
workability of the mixes improved, the compressive
strength of the self-compacting concrete mixes
decreased. This may be because of wider spread of
the air bobbles in the mixtures as a result of higher
dosages of the superplasticizer. According to Figs. 1
to 4, there were linear relationships between the test
results on workability and the 28-day compressive
strengths of self-compacting mixes. It means the
relation between the compressive strength and
workability is linear when the mix proportions are
constant; therefore, the compressive strength of each
mix containing a new dosage of superplasticizer can
be estimated from its workability tests.
However, the comparison between the mixes
containing fly ash shows the first group had higher
workability and lower compressive strength. The
reason for this phenomenon can be the pozzolanic
activities of fly ash.
Table 2: Workability of Self Compacting Concrete
Mixes
 International Journal of Advanced Engineering Research and Studies E-ISSN2249–8974

Table 3: Compressive strength of Self-Compacting Concrete

Compressive strength V/S Slump flow

Compressive strength V/S L-Box

SCC2
SCC1 50
Fc (Mpa)

34
Fc (Mpa)

0
32 10 9.5 9
30
28
26
Compressive strength V/S V-Funnel

CONCLUSIONS
From the results presented in this paper, using
concrete containing different dosages of a kind of
superplasticizer based on carboxylic, the main
conclusions are:
1. In Self compacting concrete mixes with constant
ingredients and different dosages of the
superplasticizer, the ones incorporating fly ash,
tended to have higher workability.
2. To decrease the compressive strength of the
concrete mixtures, utilizing the superplasticizer
dosage that causes better dispersions of
cementations materials and also produce higher
air bobbles in the mixes are suggested.
Comparing the results of the mixes containing
different dosages of the superplasticizer shows
the effect of air bobbles is more important than
the dispersions of the cementations materials.
3. The effects of fly ash and the dosage of the
superplasticizer were higher on improving the
compressive strength when the w/c ratio was
lower.
4. The relation between the compressive strength
and workability of concrete mixes was linear
when the w/c ratio and other mix proportions
were constant. In other words, in this context,
the compressive strength of a concrete mixture
containing a new dosage of superplasticizer
could be estimated from its workability tests.
REFERENCES
1. Okamura, H. and Ouchi, M. “Self-compacting concrete:
development, present use and future,” Proceedings of the
First International RILEM Symposioum , 1999, 3-14.
2. Jianxiong, C., Xincheng, P. and Yubin, H. “A study of self-
compacting HPC with superfine sand and pozzolanic
additives,” Proceedings of the First International RILEM
Symposioum , 1999, 549-560.
3. Sari, M., Prat, E. and Labastire J.F. “High strength self-
compacting concrete-original solutions associating organic
and inorganic admixtures,” Cement and Concrete Research,
29, 1999, 813-818.
4. Felekoglu, B. “Investigation on mechanical and physical
properties of SCC,” M.Sc. Thesis in Civil Engineering,
Dokus Eylul University, Izmir, 2003.
5. Assaad, J., Khayat, K.H. and Daczko J. “Evaluation of static
stability of self-consolidating concrete,” ACI Materials
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6. Pei, M., Wang, Z., Li, W., Zhang, J., Pan, Q. and Qin, X.
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7. The European guidelines for self compacting concrete ,
May-2005.

IJAERS/Vol. I/ Issue III/April-June, 2012/09-11

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