Pullout testing of concrete

Cast-in-place device enables concrete to be

evaluated in the structure with only minor damage
BY JOHN A. BICKLEY
TROW LTD., CONSULTING ENGINEERS

esting of field-cured cylinders to determine

whether concrete strength is satisfactory for either removal of forms or application of post-tensioning has been required by many codes and
specifications. Howe ve r, it is difficult to be sure that
field-cured cylinders have received the same protection
or curing conditions that were provided for parts of the
structure they are supposed to represent. Therefore the
interest in in-place test methods, including pullout
tests, has been growing.
A pullout test measures the force required to pull a
specially shaped steel rod or disc out of the hardened
concrete into which it has been cast. Because of its
shape, the steel rod is pulled out with a cone of concrete
whose surface slope is approximately 45 degrees to the
vertical. A hollow tension ram bearing on the concrete
surface exerts the necessary pull on the steel rod, with
power supplied by a hand-operated hydraulic pump.
The force required for pullout is then related to the com-

Figure 2. Load is hydraulically applied by turning the handle

of the testing machine. Note pulled out cone of concrete
and cavities from which cones have been pulled.

Figure 1. Compact, lightweight pullout testing equipment is

small enough to be carried in a briefcase and weighs about
10 pounds.

pressive strength of the concrete. The principal parts

ram and pumpare commercially available, and peripheral parts such as the rods, washers and sleeves can
be manufactured locally, or all of the components may
be purchased as one proprietary system.
Pullout testing is not a recent development. As early as
1938, the American Concrete Institute published a report of in-place concrete testing in the Soviet Union,
pullout tests were prominent among them. It was not
until the 1970s howe ve r, following work by Richards and
Malhotra, that this approach to testing began to be regarded as a practical site method.

deck forms. After the concrete has hardened, the bolt

holding the stem to the formwork is removed as is the
plug in the formwork. A special wrench is then used to
remove the stem from the pullout disc. At the time of
the test a pull-bolt is threaded into the disc from the surface and attached by a coupling to the testing machine.
The counterpressure ring of the testing machine is
placed against the surface of the concrete and load is hydraulically applied by turning the handle of the testing
machine. The machine incorporates a special valve so
that within a wide range of speeds of turning the handle
the load is applied at a uniform and constant rate.
Figure 3. Removable shaft of the pullout device may be
attached through a circular hardboard plate nailed to the
form (left); by means of a screw which passes through the
form (center); or with a flotation cup (right) which rests on
the unformed concrete surface.

Test equipment
One commercially available pullout test system developed in Denmark is shown in Figures 1 and 2. This
portable equipment, contained entirely in a briefcase,
weighs less than 10 pounds. The pullout insert is a 1inch-diameter hardened steel disc held 1 inch from the
concrete surface by a removable shaft. This shaft can be
attached to the form using a circular hardboard plate
nailed into place or through the formwork using an adjustable 14-inch-diameter screw. It can also be placed in
unformed surfaces of concrete using a flotation cup. The
three systems are shown in Figure 3.
Figure 4 shows how a bolt is installed for testing before
form removal. The insert is first attached to a removable
plug about 3 inches in diameter. This removable form
plug can be reused and is particularly suitable for flying

The test bolt including disc and

stem is mounted
on the inside of the
form prior to placing concrete.

Concrete is
placed.

Test procedure
Load can be applied up to a required proof load and
then released, in which case there is no failure of the
concrete around the insert. Alternatively, load can be applied until failure just occurs, in which case little damage
occurs to the surface of the concrete, and the cone of
concrete fractured by the test does not come out of the
mass of concrete. If this procedure is followed, all that
shows on the surface of the concrete is a slightly raised
ring, the size of the inside of the counterpressure ring.
Finally, if required, loading can be continued past failure
until the cone of concrete and the pullout insert are removed from the concrete. In this case, the small hole
made by this procedure may subsequently have to be repaired.
Each test takes approximately 2 minutes and it is recommended that about 10 inserts be used for each 100
cubic yards of concrete placed. Where very large pours
are involved, the number of inserts per unit volume may
be reduced, but the principal value of the system is in the
use of relatively large numbers of tests to achieve high
levels of confidence. After the tests are completed, the

The form (or part of

the form) and the
stem of the test bolt
are removed.

A pull bolt is
screwed into the disc,
and the instrument is
mounted on the surface of the concrete.

By applying a
force with the instrument a small
piece of the concrete is dislodged.

Figure 4. Sequence of operations in pullout testing. The force required to extract the disc is measured and correlated with
compressive strength of concrete.

results are averaged and the standard deviation calculated. The minimum pullout strength of the pour is then
calculated by deducting the standard deviation times a
constant (which varies with the number of tests made)
from the mean strength of the results. This result gives
the minimum strength in a pour to 95 percent confidence levels. Since all the tests are made on actual concrete in the structure, the strength calculated by this system is a statistically valid measurement of the strength of
the element.
A primary use of pullout testing is to determine the
safe removal time for forms or the earliest time at which
post-tensioning may take place, and it is essential that
the results do not contain any error. A procedure has
therefore been adopted whereby the results are phoned
through to a central office where personnel have programmed calculators similar to those used by the technicians in the field. The results are recalculated and confirmed on the telephone to the technician who then
knows that no arithmetical errors have been made. A
standard form is used to present the results to the contractor or other authorized person on site. On this form
are stated limits which have been agreed upon with the
structural engineer for form removal or post-tensioning
and all results are given, together with the mean
strength, standard deviation, and calculated minimum
strength. In addition, a three-dimensional reference is
shown, relating the tests to the element of the structure
on which they were conducted. This form is signed by
the technician and given to the contractor who signs a
copy which is retained by the testing authority. By this
procedure, the possibility of an error is minimized and
both parties have a written record of what has been
agreed.

Correlating pullout test results with

other test results
Because the standard measure of the strength of concrete in North America has for the last 75 years been determined using concrete cylinder compression tests, it is
now necessary to relate the results of pullout tests to
these standard tests. Correlation between pullout
strength and compressive strength can be easily determined by making standard cylinders in which pullout
inserts are cast. It has been the practice in Canada to cast
sets of 10 cylinders, each containing a pullout insert in
the bottom. The pullout test is first carried out and load
is applied just to failure. The cylinder is then capped and
tested in the normal manner. Prior to capping, the top of
the cylinder containing the pullout insert is tapped carefully with a hammer to assure that the slightly dislodged
cone of concrete is hammered back into its original position in the cylinder. Extensive comparison tests using
groups of cylinders containing pullout inserts and those
without inserts have shown that the presence of the insert makes no difference in the compressive strength test
results obtained with the cylinder. It is therefore easy to
obtain correlations between pullout strength and com-

p re s s i ve strength by making groups of cylinders and

testing them at various strength levels. Recently, in the
light of the data obtained from many tests in No rt h
America, it has been concluded that an accurate correlation can be obtained, provided a range of strengths
above 3000 psi is included in the correlation tests and
provided each point on the curve represents at least two
tests.
The manufacturer of the equipment described publishes a recommended straight-line relationship to use
in relating pullout force to the compressive strength of
standard cylinders. In North America a slightly different
relationship has been found; the reason for this is not
clear except that in Denmark cylinders are not capped
before they are tested in compression.
In recent tests comparing pullout tests and cores from
uniform slabs of concrete it has been concluded that,
while slightly higher, the variation of a pullout test is of
the same order of magnitude as that of a standard cylinder. It has also been shown by calculation from these data that the effect of the testing variation of a pullout test
has very little effect on the value for minimum strength
of a pour of concrete calculated by the procedure described earlier. The pullout test can therefore be used to
determine accurately and reliably the actual strength of
concrete in a pour.
In 1978, the American Society for Testing and Materials published a tentative standard on pullout testing,
ASTM C 900-78T, Tentative Test Method for Pullout
Strength of Hardened Concrete. This tentative standard
is currently being revised and it is hoped that a full standard will be approved by ASTM in the very near future.

Pros and cons of pullout testing

There are now more than 30 testing devices of the
type described being used in North America and to date
something on the order of 20,000 tests have been carried out. Primary use for the system has been in either
controlling formwork removal and time of post-tensioning, or determining the minimum amount of curing
needed in cold weather conditions. The system has
been used on cooling towers, chimneys, multistory
building frames, pipelines, bridges and other forms of
construction.
Pullout testing lends itself to accelerated construction programs and if properly applied can be used in
conjunction with selected concrete mixes to help build
multistory frames more rapidly than normal. Because financing and other costs are currently very high, a reduction in construction time can result in significant financial benefits to the owner and other parties to a contract.
With the system of pullout testing described, the inserts have to be preplaced in the forms before concreting. Many people feel that this is a disadvantage although in practice we do not find this to be so. On
almost all sites, the inserts are placed by the contractors
forces and less than 3 percent are lost due to faulty installation. More inserts than needed are placed in case

initial tests show values lower than required. There is

then an adequate number of inserts for testing later to
satisfy statistical needs.
Because the inserts are placed throughout the pour
and in relatively large numbers, the writer believes that
with normal supervision there is no practical way for a
contractor to influence the test results.
For those who still prefer to select test locations after
the concrete has hardened, a new method of pullout
testing has been developed in Denmark. A hole is drilled
with a diamond drill and then undercut with a diamond
drilling tool. An expandable insert is inserted in the hole
and expanded. A standard instrument is then coupled to
the insert and a pullout test made in the standard manner. The dimensions of the insert and its distance from
the concrete surface are the same as for the standard
pullout inserts shown in Figure 3.

While a major concern of the writer and other persons

is safety, it is very difficult to persuade people to use a
system on the basis of safety alone. Howe ve r, pullout
testing does have the potential to become one of the
prime systems used to determine safe removal times for
formwork. It is possible that in the not too distant future
this and other in-place test methods will be written into
the applicable codes and will at least under some circumstances become a mandatory procedure.

PUBLICATION #C810577
Copyright 1981, The Aberdeen Group
All rights reserved