RC-I Properties of Concrete and Reinforcement

CHAPTER 1
PROPERTIES OF CONCRETE AND REINFORCEMENT
1.1 Introduction
Concrete is the most commonly used building material. It has the advantage of being formed
into any desired shape most conveniently. It is an artificial stone obtained by mixing
aggregates, cement and water and allowing the product to cure for hardening. Its essential
ingredients are cement and water, which react with each other chemically, to form another
material having useful strength. The strength of concrete depends upon the quality of its
ingredients, their relative quantities and the manner in which they are mixed, compacted and
cured. It is possible to produce concrete of different specifications for various purposes by
suitably adjusting the proportions of cement, aggregate and water.

Reinforced concrete is a composite material made of concrete and steel. Plain concrete
possesses high compressive strength but little tensile strength, which makes it weak in
bending, shear and torsion. Reinforcing steel possesses high strength both in tension and
compression. In reinforced concrete, steel provides the tensile strength and the concrete
provides the compressive strength. So, by combining these features of concrete and steel, it
attains high utility and versatility.
Advantages of RC Disadvantages of RC
- It is moldable into any desired shape - Difficult to dismantle
- It does not deteriorate with time - Formwork is expensive
- It is fire, weather and corrosion resistant - Difficult to supervise after pouring
- It is monolithic - Due to crack, large section are not used.

1.2 Important Features of Concrete & Reinforcing Steel

Characteristic Strength of Materials
During the design of reinforced concrete structures, variations in strength of the materials in
the structure and in the test specimens should be considered. The use of statistical procedure
has resulted in what is called characteristic strength as a reference value. Characteristic
strength of a material is the value below which some percent of the test results fall (5% as per
ES EN 2) for both concrete and steel.

ES EN uses the term characteristic strength instead of 28-day cube strength (for concrete)
and yield stress (for steel), although it is related to these. The characteristic strength for all

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RC-I Properties of Concrete and Reinforcement
materials has the notation fk and is defined as the value of the cube strength of concrete (fcu),
the yield or proof stress of reinforcement (fy), below which 5% of all possible test results
would be expected to fall. The value therefore is
f k  f m  1.64 s (1.1)
Where fm is the mean strength of actual test results determined in accordance with a standard
procedure, s is the standard deviation, & 1.64 is the value of the constant required to comply
with 5% of the test results falling below the characteristic strength, as shown in Fig. 1.1.

Fig. 1.1: - Characteristic strength

1.2.1 Properties of Concrete

A) Compressive Strength
The main measure of the structural quality of concrete is its compressive strength. According
to the American Society for Testing and materials (ASTM), tests for compressive strength are
made on cylindrical specimen of height equal to twice the diameter. The usual dimension of
the cylindrical specimen is 150mm in diameter and 300mm high. According to ASTM, the
cylinder specimens are moist cured for 28 days (unless there is satisfactory evidence that a
particular testing regime is capable of predicting the 28-day strength at an earlier age) and
then tested in the laboratory at a specified rate of loading until failure.
The compressive strength is calculated as the failure load divided by cross-sectional area of
the specimen and it is reported in units of force per square area (usually MPa). The
compressive strength obtained from such test is known as the cylindrical compressive
strength, fck, and this is the main property specified for design purpose. Compressive tests

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 RC-I Properties of Concrete and Reinforcement
can also be conducted on a cube specimen of size 150x150x150mm in the same way (this is
known as cube test and is commonly used in Ethiopa).
According to ES EN 2, the compressive strength of concrete is denoted by concrete strength
classes which relate to the characteristic cylinder strength fck, or the cube strength fck,cube.
Concrete strength classes and properties are shown in Table 1.1.
ES EN 2 gives classes of concrete from C12/15 to C90/105.
Here only grades up to C50/60 are shown. In the notation used
for compressive strength class, ‘C’ refers to normal weight
concrete, the first number refers to the cylinder strength fck and
the second number refers to the cube strength fck,cube.

Strength Class (MPa)

Property
C12/15 C16/20 C20/25 C25/30 C30/37 C35/45 C40/50 C45/55 C50/60
fck 12 16 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
fck,cube 15 20 25 30 37 45 50 55 60
fcm 20 24 28 33 38 43 48 53 58
fctm 1.57 1.9 2.21 2.56 2.9 3.21 3.51 3.8 4.07
fctk,0.05 1.1 1.33 1.55 1.79 2.03 2.25 2.46 2.66 2.85
fctk,0.95 2.04 2.47 2.87 3.33 3.77 4.17 4.56 4.94 5.29
Ecm (GPa) 27.1 28.7 30 31.5 32.9 34.1 35.3 36.3 37.3
Table 1.1 Concrete strength classes and properties.
B) Tensile Strength
Even though compression strength of concrete is best utilized, its tensile strength is also
important in a variety of items. It is used to design for shear, torsion and crack width. The
tensile strength of concrete is much lower than its compressive strength. It is around 8-15%
of the compressive strength.
It is difficult to determine the tensile strength from laboratory tension tests due to problem
with gripping. Hence it is usually determined indirectly from split-cylinder test or flexure test
or from empirical formulae. ES EN 2 uses the following empirical formulae;
f ctm  0.3 f ck 2/3 (1.2)

Where, fctm = mean axial tensile strength of concrete in MPa

Other tensile strength of concrete given by the code are the 5% & 95% fractile characteristic
tensile strength;
fctk ,0.05  0.7 fctm  0.21 fck 2/3 fctk ,0.95  1.3 fctm  0.39 fck 2/3

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RC-I Properties of Concrete and Reinforcement
C) Stress – Strain Curve
The stress-strain curve used for analysis is illustrated in figure 1.2 below. The slope of the
line passing through the origin and through a point on the curve corresponding to a stress of
0.4fcm is called the secant modulus of elasticity, Ecm.

Fig. 1.2: - Stress-strain relation for non-linear structural analysis.

According to ES EN 2, the secant modulus Ecm can be calculated using;
E cm  22  0.1 f cm 
0. 3
(1.3)
Where, Ecm = the secant modulus in GPa.
fcm = mean cylindrical compressive strength in MPa.
f cm  f ck  8 (1.4)

D) Poison’s Ratio
Poisson’s ratio may be taken equal to 0.2 for uncracked concrete and 0 for cracked concrete.
E) Creep
Another important factor to be considered is creep: a property where increase in strain under
constant load with time is observed. Factors that contribute to creep include: - loading at an
early stage, high water/cement ratio, exposing the concrete to drying condition.
F) Unit Weight
An increase in the unit weight of concrete results in an increase in strength. Unit weight can
be increased using denser aggregate, graded aggregates, vibrating and reducing w/c ratio. In
general, for a reinforced concrete a unit weight value of 25KN/m3 can be used for design.

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RC-I Properties of Concrete and Reinforcement
1.2.2 Properties of Reinforcement Steel
Reinforcement steel is a high-strength and expensive steel bar used in concrete construction
to provide additional strength. When reinforcing steel is used with concrete, the concrete is
made to resist compression stress and the steel is made to resist tensile stress with or without
additional compressive stress. When RC elements are used, sufficient bond between the two
materials must be developed to ensure that there is no relative movement between the steel
bars and the surrounding concrete. This bond may be developed by; chemical adhesion,
natural roughness and closely spaced rib-shaped surface deformation of reinforcement bars.
ASTM specifications require the deformations to have average spacing not exceeding 0.7 of
the nominal bar diameter and a height at least 0.04 to 0.05 of the bar diameter. The
deformations must cover 75% of the bar circumference. The angle that these deformations
make with the axis of the bar should not be less than 45°. Generally longitudinal ribs are also
present.

Fig. 1.3: - Types of reinforcement bars.

Reinforcing bars varying in size 6 to 35mm in size are available and are surface deformed
except  6. Some rebar properties for design purpose available in Ethiopia are given below.
Φ6 Φ8 Φ10 Φ12 Φ14 Φ16 Φ20 Φ24 Φ30 Φ32
Area (mm2) 28 50 78.5 113 154 201 314 452 707 804
Weight (kg/m) 0.222 0.395 0.617 0.888 1.208 1.578 2.466 3.551 5.549 6.313
Table 1.4 Reinforcement bar properties that are available in Ethiopia.
2
Note that in the above table, weight (kg /m)  where; ϕ is diameter in mm.
162.2
Characteristic properties of reinforcement bars is expressed using the yield strength (fyk).
Characteristic yield strength, fyk, of between 400 and 600MPa are allowed in the code (i.e.
steel grades between S-400 and S-600), but grade S-300 is also available in Ethiopia.
The modulus of elasticity of steel, Es, is 200 GPa.
The density of steel is 7850 Kg/m3 (unit weight = 77KN/m3).

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RC-I Properties of Concrete and Reinforcement
1.3 Actions (Loads)
An action is a direct or indirect force (load) that acts on a structure. They can be divided into
three categories: -
Permanent Actions: - are loads that are constant in magnitude and fixed in location
throughout the lifetime of the structure. Some examples of permanent actions are;
 Self-weight of structures, fittings and fixed equipment (Dead loads)
 Prestressing force
 Water and earth loads
 Indirect action, e.g. settlement of supports.
In buildings, the major part of the dead load is the weight of the structure itself. This can be
calculated with good accuracy from the design configuration, dimensions of the structure, and
density of the material. For buildings, floor fill, finish floors, and plastered ceilings are
usually included as dead loads, and an allowance is made for suspended loads such as piping
and lighting fixtures.

Variable Actions: - are loads that may be either fully or partially in place or not present at all,
and may also change in location. Some examples of variable actions are;
 Imposed floor loads (Live loads)
 traffic loads on bridges
 Wind loads
 Snow loads
 Indirect action, e.g. temperature effects
As an example, the minimum live loads for which the floors and roof of a building should be
designed are usually specified in the building code that governs at the site of construction.

Accidental & Seismic Actions: - are caused by unintended events which generally are of
short duration and which have a very low probability of occurrence
 Explosions
 Fire
 Impact from vehicles
 Seismic action

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RC-I Properties of Concrete and Reinforcement
1.3.1 Characteristic Load
For loading we use the ‘characteristic’ load (Fk) as the basis. Characteristic load is that value
of the load, which has an acceptable probability of not being exceeded during the service life
of the structure.
Ideally this should be determined from the mean load and its standard deviation from the
mean, and using the same probability as for the materials we should say that Fk = Fm + 1.64s.
The characteristic load would be that value of loading such that not more than 5% of the
spectrum of loading throughout the life of structure will lie above the value of the
characteristic load (Figure 1.4).

Mean Characteristic
Frequency of results

Load Load
1.64s

5% of results
to right of this
line

Fm Fk = Fm + 1.64s Load

Fig. 1.4: - Characteristic load.

The characteristic dead, imposed and wind loads have the notation Gk, Qk, Wk respectively,
where the upper-case letters denote the total load on a span. Lower-case letters denote
uniform load per square meter, although in design examples for beams the lower-case letters
have been used for a uniformly distributed load, so that Gk = gk*l.
ES EN 1 gives values of characteristic permanent loads Gk and characteristic imposed loads
Qk and ES EN 8 gives characteristic seismic loads Ak.

1.4 Behavior of Reinforced Concrete Under Load

In RC structures such as beams, the tension caused by bending moment is chiefly resisted by
the steel reinforcement while the concrete alone is usually capable of resisting the
corresponding compression. Such joint action of the two materials is assumed if the relative

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RC-I Properties of Concrete and Reinforcement
slip is prevented which is achieved by using deformed bars, with their high bond strength at
the steel concrete interface. To illustrate the stress strain development for increased loading
consider the beam shown below.

Fig. 1.5: - Behavior of RC beam under load.

 At low loads where tensile stress is less than or equals to fctm stress-strain relation shown
in figure 1.5a results.
 At increased load tensile stress produced is larger than fctm (figure 1.5b)  crack
develops below neutral axis, the steel alone carries all tensile force and hence the
compressive stress at extreme fiber is less than fc (linear stress distribution).
 For further increment of load, the stress distribution is no longer linear as shown in fig.
1.5c.
If the structure, say the beam, has reached its maximum carrying capacity, one may conclude
the following on the cause of failure.
(i). When the amount of steel is small – at some value of the load, the steel reaches it yield
point. In such circumstances, the steel stretches a large amount and tension cracks in the
concrete widen visibly resulting significant deflection of the beam. Compression zone of
concrete increases ending up with crushing of concrete (secondary compression failure).
Such failure is gradual and is preceded by visible signs, widening and lengthening of
cracks, marked increase in deflection.
(ii). When a large amount of steel is used, compressive strength of concrete would be
exhausted before the steel starts yielding, thus, concrete fails by crushing. Compression
failure through crushing of concrete is sudden and occurs without warning.
Thus it is a good practice to dimension sections in such a way that should they be overloaded,
yielding of steel rather than crushing of concrete would initiate failure.

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