Construction

and Building

MATERIALS

Construction and Building Materials 20 (2006) 893900

www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

The maturity method: Modications to improve estimation

of concrete strength at later ages
Yahia A. Abdel-Jawad
Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Jordan University of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 3030, Irbid, Jordan
Received 11 August 2004; received in revised form 10 March 2005; accepted 30 June 2005
Available online 19 August 2005

Abstract
Two modications have been proposed for the NurseSaul maturity function to get better estimates of compressive strength of
concrete cured at dierent temperatures. The modications account for the eect of w/c ratio on the temperature dependence of
strength development and the eect of curing temperature on the long-term strength. The eect of the proposed modications
on the estimation of concrete strength using the NurseSaul maturity function have been compared with the estimation using
unmodied NurseSaul equation with two dierent datum temperatures (i.e., T0 = 10 C and T0 = 0 C). The results show that
applying the proposed modications improves the accuracy of estimated concrete strength at dierent curing temperatures, especially at later ages.
2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Maturity; NurseSaul; Curing temperature; Compressive strength; Concrete; Mortar; Strength development

1. Introduction

Mt

During the last decades, the maturity method has

been developed and used as one of the most favorable
methods for estimating in-place concrete strength. The
in-place strength is estimated based on the in-place
maturity index and a previously established relationship
between maturity index and strength [15].
In 1987, ASTM adopted a standard practice on the
use of the maturity method to estimate in-place strength
(ASTM C 1074). This standard permits the user to express the maturity index either in terms of the temperaturetime factor using the NurseSaul equation or in
terms of the equivalent age at a specied temperature
using the Arrhenius equation.
Using the NurseSaul equation, the temperature
time factor is computed as follows:

where M(t) is the temperaturetime factor at age t; degree-days or degree-hours; Dt is a time interval, days
or hours; Ta the average concrete temperature during
time interval, Dt, C, and T0 is the datum temperature,
C.
According to ASTM C1074-98 [6], it is recommended that the datum temperature be determined
experimentally or may be taken as 0 C if ASTM
Type I cement is used without admixtures and the expected curing temperature is within 0 and 40 C. However, the T0 value used for decades and still used by
most maturity instruments is 10 C, which is approximately the temperature at which the hydration of cement ceases.
Using the Arrhenius equation, the equivalent age at a
specied temperature is computed as follows:



t
X
E 1
1
te
exp 

 Dt;
2
R Ta Ts
0

E-mail address: jawad@just.edu.jo.

0950-0618/$ - see front matter 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2005.06.022

T a  T 0 Dt;

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Y.A. Abdel-Jawad / Construction and Building Materials 20 (2006) 893900

where te is the equivalent age at a specied temperature

Ts, days or hours; E is the activation energy of cement
hydration, (kJ/mol); R is the gas constant (8.31 J/
mol K); Ta is the average concrete temperature during
time interval, Dt, K; Ts is the specied temperature, K,
and Dt is the time interval, days or hours.
According to ASTM C1074-98, for concrete made
with type I cement without admixtures, an activation energy of 41.5 kJ/mol is recommended. For other conditions or when maximum accuracy is desired, the
activation energy should be determined experimentally.
The ASTM standard provides procedures for developing the strengthmaturity relationship and for estimating the in-place strength. In addition, a procedure
is provided for obtaining the datum temperature or activation energy, if that is desired.
Regardless of the procedure used to calculate the
maturity index, the maturity concept assumes that a given concrete possesses a unique relationship between
strength and the maturity index. This assumption would
be acceptable if the long-term strength of concrete was
independent of the curing temperature but this is not
the case. It has been shown by many investigators that
the initial curing temperature of the concrete aects
the long-term strength and that for equal values of the
maturity index, specimens with higher early-age temperatures resulted in higher initial strengths and lower longterm strength [710]. Therefore, a given concrete mixture
does not posses a unique strengthmaturity relationship.
Due to its simplicity, the NurseSaul maturity equation has received wide attention and is used widely in
engineering practice for computing the maturity index.
The main objective of the present work is to propose
necessary modications to the maturity concept based
on the NurseSaul equation to improve the accuracy of
estimated concrete strength, especially at later ages which
is the main defect in the maturity concept in general.

2. Proposed modications
Using the NurseSaul equation (Eq. (1)), the maturity index of a concrete cured at a curing temperature
Ta for a time interval equals t1 is calculated as:
M a T a  T 0  t1

and the maturity index at a specied curing temperature,

Ts, for a time equal te is calculated as:
M s T s  T 0  te .

According to the maturity concept, the concrete will

have the same strength when it has achieved the same
maturity index, regardless of the combination of time
and temperature used to calculate the maturity index.
Therefore, the concrete will reach the same strength at
two temperatures, Ta and Ts, when

T a  T 0  t1 T s  T 0  te .

In other words, the curing time needed at the specied temperature, Ts, to produce the same strength obtained at the curing temperature, Ta, will be equal to
Ta  T0
t1 .
6
Te
Ts  T0
This curing time is known as the equivalent age at
specied (or reference) temperature (Ts) to produce the
same strength of a concrete cured at another temperature (Ta) for a certain time (t1).
Eq. (6) is the equivalent age form of the NurseSaul
maturity function. This equation gives a linear relationship for converting the curing times at dierent curing
temperatures, in contrast to the exponential relationship
given by the Arrhenius equation as proposed by Freiesleben-Hansen and Pederson [11].
The strength development of concrete mainly depends on cement type, curing temperature, admixtures
(if used), and the mixture water-to-cement ratio w/c.
To account better for the strength development of concrete at dierent curing temperatures to the equivalent
age, the role of the concrete w/c ratio will be involved
in Eq. (7) as follows:
X T a  T 0 n
te
 Dt;
7
Ts  T0
where n will account for the role of w/c ratio and is given
by the following equation:
n

1
.
1  w=c2

In Eq. (7), the most common value for T0 used in the

literature and the engineering practice will be used (i.e.,
T0 = 10 C).
As stated earlier, it has been shown by many investigators [7,10,12] that later-age strength of concrete is affected highly by the initial curing temperature. The
higher the initial curing temperature, the higher the
early-age strength, but the lower the later-age strength
as illustrated in Fig. 1. The gure is based on the data
reported in [10]. Therefore, to quantitate this eect
and to account for it when estimating compressive
strength using the strength development at a reference
temperature. The ratio between the actual strength obtained for concrete at a given age (t) at certain curing
temperature (Ta) to that estimated using the maturity
equation (Eq. (7)) for a reference temperature (Ts) is
plotted against the temperature ratio, (TaTs)/Ts as
shown in Fig. 2. The reference temperature (Ts) used
in this gure is 20 C.
It has been shown by analyzing several sets for concrete and mortar samples cured at dierent temperatures, that these relationships are linear with dierent
slopes at dierent ages as shown in Fig. 2. The equation
representing this relation is given by:

Y.A. Abdel-Jawad / Construction and Building Materials 20 (2006) 893900

Fig. 1. Compressive strength development under dierent isothermal

curing temperatures for mortar specimens with w/c = 0.50.

895

Fig. 3. k vs. equivalent age (te).

k 0.141  e0.1te .

10

Combining Eqs. (9) and (10), the following equation

is obtained:


Ta  Ts
fc t; T a fc te ; T s 1  0.14
1  e0.1te ;
Ts
11
where fc(t, Ta) is strength of concrete at time t and cured
at temperature Ta; fc(te, Ts) is the strength of concrete at
equivalent age te and cured at the specied temperature;
Ts, te is the equivalent age, days.
As shown in Eq. (11), the higher the curing temperature and the longer the age at which the strength will be
determined, the lower the later strength will be. This
agrees with the actual behavior of concrete cured at different curing temperatures as illustrated in Fig. 1.

3. Validation of the proposed modications

Fig. 2. fc(t, Ta)/fc(te, Ts) vs. (Ta  Ts)/Ts.

fc t; T a
Ta  Ts
1k
.
fc te ; T s
Ts

As shown in Fig. 2, the factor k depends on the

equivalent age at which the strength is estimated. The
factor k is plotted against the equivalent age as shown
in Fig. 3. The relationship between k and the equivalent
age was found to be described by the following exponential function:

To validate the proposed modications to the Saul

Nurse maturity equation, two sets of data published in
the literature will be used. The rst set of data was reported by Carino [13] for mortar specimens with w/c ratio equals 0.43 and cured at dierent temperatures from
5 to 43 C as shown in Table 1. The second set of data
was reported by Kjellsen and Detwiller [10] for mortar
specimens with 0.5 w/c ratio and cured at dierent curing temperatures from 5 to 50 C as shown in Table 1.
For the rst set of data, 23 C is considered as the reference temperature, while 20 C is considered as the reference temperature for the second set of data.

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Y.A. Abdel-Jawad / Construction and Building Materials 20 (2006) 893900

Table 1
Experimental compressive strength data for mortar specimens
Curing temperature (T) C

Curing time
(days)

Compressive
strength (MPa)

1.29
3.41
6.94
13.27
27.01
47.01
67.11

2.17
15.59
29.24
44.62
56.28
62.10
64.55

0.97
2.04
4.51
8.97
18.97
31.93
45.93

4.52
14.48
27.83
43.52
54.41
54.41
62.55

0.48
1.11
2.36
5.01
9.97
20.99
33.92

3.00
13.59
25.52
40.28
49.48
57.14
59.07

32

0.38
0.79
1.79
4.11
8.94
15.97
25.79

4.34
13.79
27.03
40.34
48.21
52.55
53.14

43

0.22
0.56
1.38
3.13
5.95
12.94
19.96

3.10
17.55
31.48
41.34
44.03
51.21
54.66

1.88
3
7
14
28
91

11.90
19.60
35.48
45.47
52.31
58.59

1
2
3
7
28
91

9.70
24.60
31.20
41.60
55.2
62.30

0.50
1
2
7
28
91

6.50
19.6
31.90
43.90
53.60
58.10

Mortar (w/c = 0.43) [13]a

5

12

23

Mortar (w/c = 0.5) [10]a

5

12.5

20

Table 1 (continued)
Curing temperature (T) C

Curing time
(days)

Compressive
strength (MPa)

35

0.25
0.50
1
3
28
91

7.10
21.90
32.60
40.20
50.40
53.20

0.15
0.25
0.50
1
3
56

8.40
19.90
28.10
31.30
40.00
48.00

a
Specimens: 51 mm (2 in.) cubical specimens, each data point
average of three specimens.

The compressive strength development at the reference temperatures was found described by the Weibul
equation given as:
d

fc te ; T s a  b ecte .

12

where a, b, c and d are regression constants. The values

of the regression constants along with the correlation
coecients and the standard errors for the two sets of
data are presented in Table 2. The compressive strength
development with time for the two sets of data at the
specied (reference) temperatures as modeled by Eq.
(10) is depicted in Fig. 4.
The compressive strength at each curing age at dierent curing temperatures for the two sets of data were
estimated according to the following steps:
1. The concrete ages at each curing temperature for the
two sets of data were converted into equivalent ages
at the associated reference temperature using Eqs.
(7) and (8).
2. The compressive strength at each equivalent age is
calculated using Eq. (12).
3. The obtained strength is corrected for the eect of
curing temperature on the strength development at
dierent ages using Eq. (11).
The obtained strength is compared with the experimentally obtained strength at the same age as explained
Table 2
Regression constants for specimens cured at reference temperatures
Regression constants

w/c = 0.43

w/c = 0.50

a
b
c
d
Correlation coecient (R2)
Standard error (MPa)

59.8
75.86
0.463
0.647
0.99
0.654

60.38
737.2
2.9
0.146
0.99
1.169

Y.A. Abdel-Jawad / Construction and Building Materials 20 (2006) 893900

Fig. 4. Best t models of the compressive strength data for w/c = 0.43
and 0.50 mortars cured at the reference temperature.

in the following section. For comparison, strengths were

estimated, using the traditional maturity method without the temperature-dependent strength correction.
Equivalent ages were computed using Eq. (6) with
T0 = 10 C and T0 = 0 C.

4. Results and discussion

As explained earlier, two sets of data were used from
the literature to test the accuracy of the proposed modications in estimating concrete strength using the
NurseSaul maturity method. The strength of the mortar specimens were estimated at each age using the proposed modications and according to the traditional
maturity method using, the NurseSaul equation with
T0 = 10 C (the most used value in the practice) and
with T0 = 0 C (the value suggested by the ASTM C
1074). The estimated values are compared with the
experimental values.

897

Fig. 5. Estimated and experimental compressive strength (w/c = 0.43,

curing temperature = 5 C).

equation with the T0 = 0 C highly under estimates the

strength at all tested ages, while the NurseSaul equation with the T0 = 10 C slightly overestimates the
strength at early ages (up to seven days), but afterwards
starts to increasingly underestimates the strength.
Applying the proposed modications improves the accuracy of strength estimates at all ages as clearly shown in
Fig. 5.
Fig. 6 shows the results of the specimens cured at
12 C. The results show the same trends of the previous
case, but with smaller dierences between the estimated

4.1. Mortar specimens with w/c = 0.43

Mortar specimens were prepared using Type I portland cement with a watercement w/c ratio of 0.43
[13]. The specimens were cured at 5, 12, 23, 32 and
43 C, and compressive strengths were obtained at different ages as shown in Table 1.
The compressive strength of the specimens cured at
5 C were estimated using the proposed modications
and the traditional maturity method with NurseSaul
equation and two values of T0 (i.e., T0 = 10 C, and
T0 = 0 C). Comparison with the experimental values
is shown in Fig. 3. It is clear that using the NurseSaul

Fig. 6. Estimated and experimental compressive strength (w/c = 0.43,

curing temperature = 12 C).

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Y.A. Abdel-Jawad / Construction and Building Materials 20 (2006) 893900

Fig. 7. Estimated and experimental compressive strength (w/c = 0.43,

curing temperature = 32 C).

Fig. 8. Estimated and experimental compressive strength (w/c = 0.43,

curing temperature = 43 C).

and the experimental values, when applying the Nurse

Saul equation with the two dierent values of T0. The
proposed modications produced excellent agreement
with the experimental results, except the strength at
31.93 days (the test data before the last one). There is
probably some experimental error in this strength, since
it has the same value (54.41 MPa) as at 18.97 days, as
shown in Table 1.
Results for the mortar specimens cured at 32 C are
shown in Fig. 7. The estimates of the compressive
strength are in excellent agreement with the experimental values at early ages (up to about three days) using the
proposed approach and the traditional method with the
NurseSaul equation with the two dierent values of T0.
At later ages, the traditional maturity method overestimates the compressive strength, but good improvement
has been obtained by applying the proposed modications as shown in Fig. 7.
Fig. 8 illustrates the results for the mortar specimens
cured at 43 C. As shown in this gure, the three dierent approaches underestimate the compressive strength
at early ages (up to three days). At later ages, the traditional maturity method using the NurseSaul equation
with the two values of T0 overestimates the strength.
The proposed modications result in estimates of later-age strength that are in good agreement with the
experimental values.

50 C, and compressive strength were obtained at dierent ages as shown in Table 1.

The compressive strengths of the specimens cured at
5 C were estimated using the proposed modications
and the traditional maturity method as for the previous
case. The estimated strength is compared with the experimental values as shown in Fig. 9. It is obvious that
using the NurseSaul equation with the T0 = 0 C
underestimates the strength at all tested ages, while the
NurseSaul equation with the T0 = 10 C overesti-

4.2. Mortar specimens with w/c = 0.50

Mortar specimens were prepared using Type I portland cement with a watercement w/c ratio of 0.50
[10]. The specimens were cured at 5, 12.5, 20, 35 and

Fig. 9. Estimated and experimental compressive strength (w/c = 0.50,

curing temperature = 5 C).

Y.A. Abdel-Jawad / Construction and Building Materials 20 (2006) 893900

899

Fig. 10. Estimated and experimental compressive strength (w/c = 0.50,

curing temperature = 12.5 C).

Fig. 12. Estimated and experimental compressive strength (w/c = 0.50,

curing temperature = 50 C).

mates the strength at the early ages (up to seven days),

but afterwards starts to increasingly underestimate the
strength. The proposed modications improve the accuracy of strength estimation at all ages as shown in the
gure. These trends, for the dierent approaches agree
with the trends shown in Fig. 5, for the previous set of
data.
Fig. 10 shows the results for the specimens cured at
12.5 C. The results demonstrate that using the traditional maturity method overestimates the compressive

strength at early ages and underestimates the strength

at later ages when applying the NurseSaul equation
with the two dierent values of T0. When the proposed
modications were applied, there is an excellent agreement with the experimental values.
Results for the mortar specimens cured at 35 C are
shown in Fig. 11. The trend here is the reverse of the previous one (Fig. 10). In other words, the traditional
maturity method underestimates the strength at early
ages (up to three days) and overestimates the strength
at later ages for the NurseSaul equation using either
T0 = 0 or 10 C. The proposed modications produce
good agreement between the estimated and experimental
values at later ages.
The compressive strength results for the mortar specimens cured at 50 C are shown in Fig. 12. Once again, it
is demonstrated that applying the NurseSaul maturity
method using either T0 = 0 or 10 C underestimates
the strength at early ages and overestimates the strength
at later ages. The proposed modications produce, at
early ages, the same results as using the NurseSaul
equation with T0 = 0 C, which are better than using
T0 = 10 C. At later ages, the proposed modications
result in good agreement between the estimated and
experimental values.

5. Conclusions

Fig. 11. Estimated and experimental compressive strength (w/c = 0.50,

curing temperature = 35 C).

Two modications have been proposed to the traditional maturity method based on the NurseSaul maturity function for better estimate of compressive strength
of concrete cured at dierent temperatures. The modi-

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Y.A. Abdel-Jawad / Construction and Building Materials 20 (2006) 893900

cations account for the eect of w/c ratio equivalent age

and the eect of curing temperature on late age strength.
Based on the comparison with published experimental
data for mortar specimens, the following conclusions
may be drawn:
1 The proposed modications improve to a large extent
the accuracy of estimating strength at dierent ages
for wide range of curing temperatures (550 C).
2 Using the NurseSaul maturity function and traditional maturity method estimates strength at later
ages (beyond seven days for temperature less than
20 C and beyond three days for higher temperatures), will lead to underestimation of strength for
curing at low temperatures, and overestimation of
strength for curing at high temperatures.
3 Using the NurseSaul equation with T0 = 0 C (as
proposed by the ASTM C 1074-98) results in underestimation of strength of the mortar specimens cured
at 5 C at all tested ages.
4 The modication factor proposed in Eq. (10) is developed for isothermal curing conditions. The applicability for variable temperatures needs to be investigated.
5 The validation of the proposed modications for inplace concrete strength estimation has to be pursued,
especially for concrete made with dierent types of
cement and admixtures.

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[4] Carino NJ. Maturity method: theory and application. Cem, Concr
Aggregate 1984;6(2):6173.
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various cements and admixtures. ACI Mater J 1992;89(2):18896.
[6] Annual book of ASTM Standards, Concrete and Aggregates,
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by the maturity method, vol. 04.02; 2001.
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Betons Haerdning. J Nordic Concr Federation 1977(1):215.
[12] Chanvillard G, DAloia L. Concrete strength estimation at early
ages: modication of the method of equivalent age. ACI Mater J
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[13] Carino NJ. Temperature eects on the strength relation of mortar.
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Washington, DC; 1981. p. 90.