Construction and Building Materials 25 (2011) 3187–3192

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Performance comparison of laboratory and field produced pervious

concrete mixtures
Xiang Shu ⇑, Baoshan Huang, Hao Wu, Qiao Dong, Edwin G. Burdette
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Portland cement pervious concrete (PCPC) is an environmentally friendly paving material that has been
Received 29 October 2010 increasingly used in parking lots as well as low volume and low speed pavements. Although specifica-
Received in revised form 18 February 2011 tions are available for the mix design and construction of pervious concrete, there still remains a need
Accepted 1 March 2011
for laboratory tests to ensure the anticipated performance of laboratory designed pervious concrete. In
Available online 26 March 2011
this study, the performance of laboratory and field produced pervious concrete mixtures as well as field
cores were evaluated and compared through laboratory performance tests, including air voids, perme-
Keywords:
ability, compressive and split tensile strengths, as well as Cantabro and freeze–thaw durability tests.
Pervious concrete
Performance
Two types of coarse aggregate, limestone and granite, with two gradings, No. 8 and No. 89 specified in
Evaluation ASTM C33, were used to produce the mixtures. Latex, air-entraining admixture (AEA), and high range
Laboratory mixes water reducer (HRWR) were also added to improve the overall performance of pervious concrete. The
Field mixes results indicated that the mixtures made with limestone and latex had lower porosity and permeability,
as well as higher strength and abrasion resistance than other mixtures. Even for pervious concrete, the
addition of AEA could still help to improve the freeze–thaw resistance. The comparison between labora-
tory and field mixtures showed that a properly designed and laboratory verified pervious concrete mix-
ture could meet the requirements of permeability, strength, and durability performance in the field.
Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction well in freeze–thaw environments based on the results from field

Portland cement pervious concrete (PCPC) is an environmen-
tally friendly paving material. PCPC consists of portland cement,
water, uniform coarse aggregate, and little or no fine aggregate.
Use of uniform coarse aggregate and little or no fine aggregate
gives PCPC much higher porosity and permeability than conven-
tional concrete, which enables quick drainage of stormwater [1–
4]. Therefore, PCPC is a very effective stormwater management tool
to reduce the volume of stormwater runoff and the concentration
of pollutants [5]. In addition, pervious concrete can also reduce ur-
ban heat island effect and acoustic noise [6,7].
Since it was first introduced into the United States in the mid
1970s, pervious concrete has been used in many applications for
over 30 years [8]. During the last few years, pervious concrete
has attracted more and more attention in concrete industry due
to the increased awareness of environmental protection. Many lab-
oratory and field studies have been conducted to investigate into
various aspects of pervious concrete [1–4,9–12]. Researchers at
the National Concrete Pavement Technology Center (NCPTC) devel-
oped the mix proportions for pervious concrete in cold weather cli-
mates [1,9,10]. Delatte et al. [11,12] verified that PCPC can perform
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel. +1 865 974 2608; fax: +1 865 974 2669.
E-mail address: xshu@utk.edu (X. Shu).
visual inspection and laboratory performance tests.
Due to its high porosity, pervious concrete generally has signif-
icantly lower strength and durability properties than conventional
concrete. Yang and Jiang [6] suggested using appropriately-se-
lected aggregates, adding fine aggregates and organic intensifiers,
and optimizing mix proportion to improve the strength and abra-
sion resistance of PCPC. Kevern [3] showed that the addition of
polymer (styrene butadiene rubber, SBR) significantly improves
workability, strength, and freeze–thaw resistance of pervious con-
crete while maintaining its high porosity and permeability. Huang
et al. [13] improved the strength properties of pervious concrete
through polymer modification. Kevern et al. [14] identified that
coarse aggregate type has a direct effect on the freeze–thaw dura-
bility of pervious concrete and certain aggregates approved for tra-
ditional concrete may not be suitable for pervious concrete.
Many studies revealed that unlike conventional concrete, the
performance of pervious concrete is highly dependent on both con-
crete materials and construction techniques [1,11,12]. The focus of
pervious concrete technology is the balance of permeability and
mechanical properties as well as durability. If the mixture is too
wet and easy to compact, the voids will be clogged and the perme-
ability will be compromised. However, if the mixture is too dry and
hard for compaction, the pervious concrete pavement will be weak
and vulnerable to various types of distress. Although specifications

0950-0618/$ - see front matter Published by Elsevier Ltd.

doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2011.03.002
3188 X. Shu et al. / Construction and Building Materials 25 (2011) 3187–3192

are available for the mix design and construction of pervious con-
crete, there still remains a need for laboratory tests to ensure the
anticipated performance of laboratory designed pervious concrete.
This study presents the comparison among laboratory and field
produced mixtures as well as field cores in terms of air voids, per-
meability, strength, Cantabro loss, and freeze–thaw durability. The
Mixture F1
results showed that a properly designed and laboratory verified
pervious concrete mixture could meet the requirements of perme- Mixture F2
ability, strength, and durability performance in the field.

Mixture F3
2. Research objective and scope

The objective of the present study was to evaluate and compare

the laboratory and field produced pervious concrete mixtures as
well as field cores through laboratory performance testing. The lab-
oratory testing employed for the evaluation included the tests for
air voids, permeability, compressive and split tensile strengths,
Cantabro loss, and freeze–thaw durability.
3. Laboratory experiment
3.1. Materials
Ordinary Type I Portland cement was used in the mixtures. Two
coarse aggregates, limestone and granite, with two gradings, No.
89 and No. 8 specified in ASTM C33, were used to produce the per-
vious concrete mixtures. To improve the overall performance of
PCPC, fine aggregate, latex, monofilament polypropylene fiber,
high range water reducer (HRWR), air-entraining admixture
(AEA), and viscosity-modifying admixture (VMA) were added to
the mixtures. The mix proportions for the laboratory and field
produced pervious concrete mixtures in this study are based on a
laboratory mix design presented in Table 1.
3.2. Sample preparation
The laboratory produced pervious concrete mixtures were
mixed using a rotating-drum mixer. The field mixtures were col-
lected in the middle of placement from a truck mixer at a ready
mix concrete plant (the field project was in the plant). Laboratory
test specimens were made by applying standard rodding for com-
paction. The specimens were cured in a standard moisture curing
chamber until the days of testing. The pervious concrete pavement
was compacted with manual rollers (Fig. 1). Field cores 150 mm. in
diameter were extracted from the pervious concrete pavement
3 weeks after construction and transported to the University of
Tennessee for laboratory testing.
Fig. 1. Pervious concrete field project.
3.3. Air voids test
Since pervious concrete has a relatively high porosity, it is not
suitable to use the submerged weight measurement to obtain its
bulk volume. Neither does geometrical measurement of a speci-
men dimension reflect its surface texture and true volume. There-
fore, a vacuum package sealing device, CoreLok (Fig. 2), commonly
used to measure the specific gravity and air void content for as-
phalt mixtures, was used in this study to obtain the air voids of
pervious concrete specimens. This test was conducted by following
the ASTM D7063 procedures.
3.4. Permeability test
Due to high porosity and permeability, Darcy’s law for laminar
flow is not applicable to pervious concrete. In this study, a falling
head permeability measurement device (Fig. 3) and a method
developed by Huang et al. [15] for porous asphalt mixtures (similar
to pervious concrete in permeability) was used to obtain the pseu-
do-coefficient of permeability of pervious concrete mixtures. De-
tailed information about the test and the analysis method can be
found in Huang et al. [13,15]. 150 mm  75 mm cylindrical speci-
mens were used in this test.
3.5. Compressive and split tensile strength tests
The compressive strength test was conducted at 28 days in
accordance with ASTM C39. An INSTRON testing machine was used
to perform this test on 100 mm  200 mm cylindrical specimens.
The split tensile strength test was conducted on
150 mm  63.5 mm cylindrical specimens with an MTS machine

Table 1
Mix. proportions for laboratory and field produced mixtures (kg/m3).

Mix. type Laboratory mixtures Field mixtures

Mix. no. L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 F1 F2 F3
Cement 380 390 390 390 390 360 360 350
Water 100 140 100 140 100 110 95 90
Coarse aggregate GR LS LS LS LS LS LS LS
No. 89 No. 89 No. 89 No. 89 No. 89 No. 8 No. 8 No. 8
1420 1440 1440 1440 1440 1440 1440 1490
Fine aggregate 107 109 109 109 109 100 100 100
Latex 38 – 39 – 39 36 36 –
Fiber – – – – – – – 0.9
HRWR (ml) 1150 1160 1160 1160 1160 470 940 470
AEA (ml) – – – 390 390 690 690 700
VMA (ml) 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500

Note: GR – granite, LS – limestone, HRWR – high range water reducer, AEA – air-entraining admixture, VMA – viscosity modifying admixture, No. 8 and No. 89 are specified in
ASTM C33.
 X. Shu et al. / Construction and Building Materials 25 (2011) 3187–3192
Fig. 2. CoreLok for air voids test.
Fig. 3. Permeability test setup (after [13]).
in accordance with ASTM C496. The vertical load was continuously
recorded, and split tensile strength was computed as follows:
2Pult
St ¼
ptD
where St = split tensile strength, Pult = peak load, t = thickness of
specimen, and D = diameter of the specimen.
3.6. Cantabro Test
The Cantabro test was initially used for testing the abrasion
resistance of asphalt open-graded friction course (OGFC) – a por-
ous asphalt mixture [16]. This test is conducted with the Los Ange-
les (LA) abrasion machine (ASTM C 131) without the steel ball
charges. The weight loss after the test (called the Cantabro loss)
is calculated in percentage as follows:
W1  W2
Cantabro Loss ¼  100
W1
where Cantabro loss = weight loss in percentage, W1 = initial sam-
ple weight, and W2 = final sample weight.
3189
In this study, the Cantabro test was used to characterize the
abrasion resistance of pervious concrete specimens.
150 mm  101.6 mm cylindrical specimens were used in the test.
3.7. Freeze–thaw test
The freeze–thaw test was conducted to determine the freeze–
thaw resistance of pervious concrete mixtures using procedure A
of ASTM C666, in which specimens were subjected to continuous
freezing and thawing in the saturated condition. Relative dynamic
modulus (RDM) and mass loss were used to characterize the
freeze–thaw durability of pervious concrete. The durability factor
is calculated as follows [14]:
PN
DF ¼ ð3Þ
M
where P = relative dynamic modulus of elasticity or relative mass at
N cycles in percent, N = number of cycles at which P reaches the
specified minimum value for discontinuing the test or the specific
number of cycles at which the exposure is to be terminated, which-
ever is less. The criteria for P were 60% for RDM or 3%, 5%, or 15%
when calculated for mass, and M = specified number of cycles at
which the exposure is to be terminated, 300 cycles.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Air voids
Fig. 4 shows the air voids results for the laboratory and field
produced pervious concrete mixtures. For the laboratory mixtures,
the mixture made with limestone and latex (L3) exhibited lower
air voids than that with granite (L1). The air void content of Mix-
ture L3 (made with latex) was also lower than that without latex
(L2), which means that incorporation of latex to pervious concrete
would lower the mixture’s porosity. For the field mixtures, with
the decrease in water content (Mixture F3 < F2 < F1), the field mix-
tures showed an increase in air voids (Mixture F3 > F2 > F1). This is
due to the fact that Mixture F1 was too wet and its air voids were
either filled with or blocked by cement paste/mortar, whereas Mix-
ture F3 was too dry and hard to compact. It can be seen from Fig. 4
that the field cores extracted from the previous concrete pavement
showed higher air voids than the test specimens made with field
mixtures, which could be attributed to the difference in compac-
tion method and compaction effort.
4.2. Permeability
The permeability results of the pervious concrete mixtures are
ð1Þ shown in Fig. 5. It is evident that the permeability results were
consistent with the air voids results because air voids and perme-
ability are highly correlated. The laboratory mixture made with
limestone and latex (L3) showed lower permeability than that with
granite (L1) or the mixture without latex (L2). The ranking of the
field mixtures in terms of permeability was F3 > F2 > F1 due to
their difference in air voids. The field cores also showed higher per-
meability than the test specimens made with field mixtures.
4.3. Compressive and split tensile strengths
Figs. 6 and 7 compare the compressive and split tensile
strengths of laboratory and plant produced pervious concrete mix-
tures. The mixtures showed very similar trends in compressive and
ð2Þ split tensile strength. The laboratory mixture with limestone and
latex (L3) had higher compressive and split tensile strengths than
the mixture with granite (L1) or the mixture made without latex
(L2). Two field mixtures (F1 and F2) had higher compressive and
3190 X. Shu et al. / Construction and Building Materials 25 (2011) 3187–3192

30 30 Field Mixtures Field Cores

Effective Air Voids (%)

Effective Air Voids (%)

25 25
20 20
15 15
10 10
5 5
0 0
L1 L2 L3 F1 F2 F3
Mixture Type Mixture Type
(a) Laboratory mixtures (b) Field mixtures
Fig. 4. Air voids results.

4 4

Split Tensile Strength (MPa)

Permeability (mm/s)

3 3

2
2

1
1

0
L1 L2 L3 0
Mixture Type L1 L2 L3
(a) Laboratory mixtures Mixture Type
(a) Laboratory Mixtures
4
Field Mixtures 4
Permeability (mm/s)

Split Tensile Strength (MPa)

3 Field Cores Field Mixtures Field Cores

3
2
2
1
1
0
F1 F2 F3
0
Mixture Type F1 F2 F3
(b) Field mixtures Mixture Type

Fig. 5. Permeability results.

(b) Field Mixtures
Fig. 7. Split tensile strength results.

lower strengths than the laboratory mixtures. As expected, the

60
Compressive Strength (MPa)

field cores exhibited lower split tensile strength than the test spec-
50 imens made with field mixtures due to their higher porosity.

40

30 4.4. Cantabro loss

20
The Cantabro loss results obtained from the Cantabro test are
10 shown in Fig. 8. It can be seen that except for the field mixture
F3, other laboratory and field mixtures had a Cantabro loss of less
0
L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 F1 F2 F3
than 20% (most less than 15%), which means that they had a good
abrasion resistance. The comparison between the Cantabro loss re-
Mixture Type
sults with those of air voids and strength shows that mixtures with
Fig. 6. Compressive strength results. higher air voids and lower strength exhibited higher Cantabro loss
than the mixtures with lower porosity and higher strength. As ex-
pected, field cores had higher Cantabro loss than the test speci-
split tensile strengths than the laboratory mixtures. The third field mens made with field mixtures due to their higher porosity and
mixture, F3, was too dry and hard to compact, and thus exhibited lower strength.
 X. Shu et al. / Construction and Building Materials 25 (2011) 3187–3192 3191

30 Table 2
Field Mixtures Field cores Durability factors obtained from freeze–thaw test.
Cantabro Loss (%)
25
Lab Mixture Mixture Mix. designation DF (RDM) DF (% mass remaining)
20
60% 85% 95% 97%
15 Laboratory mixtures
Granite L1 (with latex) 25% 51% 46% 44%
10 Limestone L2 (control) 24% 55% 56% 48%
Limestone L3 (with latex) 26% 60% 53% 50%
5
Limestone L4 (with AEA) 77% 98% 98% 98%
0 Limestone L5 (with AEA and latex) 39% 77% 63% 59%
F1 F2 F3 L1 Field mixtures
Mixture Type Batch 1 F1 (with latex) 45% 98% 98% 98%
Batch 2 F2 (with latex) 48% 96% 96% 92%
Fig. 8. Cantabro loss results. Batch 3 F3 25% 51% 48% 43%

100%
suggestions by Kevern et al. [14]. The results clearly show that
L1 the two field mixtures (F1 and F2) and two laboratory mixtures
90% L2 with AEA (L4 and L5) performed much better than the other mix-
Mass Remaining

L3 tures. F1 performed well because of its low air voids and perme-
80%
L4 ability. However, its very low porosity made it unsuitable for use
L5 as pervious concrete. Mixtures L4 and L5 performed well because
F1 they contained air-entraining admixture (AEA), which indicated
70% F2 that even for pervious concrete, the addition of AEA could help to
F3 improve its freeze–thaw resistance.

60%
0 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 270 300 5. Conclusions and summary
Freeze-Thaw Cycles
The following conclusions and summary are derived from the
(a) Mass loss
present study:
100%
1. The pervious concrete mixtures made with limestone exhibited
lower porosity and permeability, as well as higher compressive
Relative Dynamic Modulus

80%
and split tensile strengths than the mixtures made with granite.
L1 2. The pervious concrete mixtures made with latex exhibited
60% L2 lower porosity and permeability, higher compressive and split
L3 tensile strengths, and higher abrasion resistance than those
40% L4 without latex. Although some laboratory mixtures with latex
L5 (L1 and L3) did not perform well in the freeze–thaw test, other
F1 mixtures with latex did show better freeze–thaw resistance
20%
F2 than those without latex. Generally the addition of latex could
F3 improve the performance of pervious concrete.
0%
3. The field cores showed higher porosity and permeability, lower
0 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 270 300
strength, and higher Cantabro loss (lower abrasion resistance)
Freeze-Thaw Cycles
than the field mixture specimens made with the standard rod-
(b) Relative dynamic modulus ding compaction method.
Fig. 9. Decreases in mass and dynamic modulus with freeze–thaw cycles. 4. Properly designed and laboratory verified pervious concrete
mixtures could meet the requirements of permeability,
strength, and durability performance in the field.
4.5. Freeze–thaw test results
5. Even for pervious concrete, the addition of air-entraining
admixture led to significant improvement of freeze–thaw
Fig. 9 shows the changes in mass and dynamic modulus of elas-
resistance.
ticity of the pervious concrete mixtures in the freeze–thaw test. It
can be seen that, with the increase in the freeze–thaw cycles, both
the mass and the dynamic modulus of the specimens decreased.
Compared to dynamic modulus, the mass loss seemed to start la- Acknowledgment
ter. However, once started, the mass loss was much faster than
the reduction in dynamic modulus. Fig. 9 shows that the field mix- The authors would like to thank the Georgia Department of
tures F1 and F2 and the laboratory mixtures with air-entraining Transportation (GDOT) for funding this research project. The
admixture (AEA) (L4 and L5) performed better than the other mix- authors would also like to acknowledge the Portland Cement Asso-
tures in terms of freeze–thaw resistance. ciation (PCA) for providing a graduate fellowship to augment the
Table 2 presents the durability factors obtained from the funding for the development of abrasion resistance testing proce-
freeze–thaw test. The durability factors were calculated based on dures for pervious concrete. Thanks also go to the Tennessee Con-
the results at 300 cycles. The criteria for test cutoff were taken crete Association (TCA) and the Transit-Mix Concrete Company for
as 60% for RDM or 3%, 5%, or 15% for mass loss following the help with the field project.
3192 X. Shu et al. / Construction and Building Materials 25 (2011) 3187–3192

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