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Bond strength of coconut shell aggregate concrete by pull-out test

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Bond strength determination between
coconut shell aggregate concrete and steel
reinforcement by pull-out test

Yashida Nadir & A. Sujatha

Asian Journal of Civil Engineering

Building and Housing

ISSN 1563-0854

Asian J Civ Eng

DOI 10.1007/s42107-018-0060-1

1 23
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 Author's personal copy
Asian Journal of Civil Engineering
https://doi.org/10.1007/s42107-018-0060-1 (0123456789().,-volV)(0123456789().,-volV)

ORIGINAL PAPER

Bond strength determination between coconut shell aggregate

concrete and steel reinforcement by pull-out test
Yashida Nadir1 • A. Sujatha2

Received: 1 March 2018 / Accepted: 11 June 2018

Ó Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract
The bond between steel and concrete is one of the essential properties affecting the performance of reinforced structural
members. Bond strength is responsible for the transfer of forces between the two materials ensuring strain compatibility
and composite action. In this study, the bond strength property of reinforced coconut shell aggregate concrete was
investigated by pull-out test. The pull-out test was carried out on concentrically reinforced concrete cubes. This experi-
mental study conducted on confined concrete included various percentage replacement of coarse aggregate by coconut
shell and deformed steel bars with 12 and 16 mm diameter. Percentage replacement by coconut shell was 0, 25, 50, 75 and
100%. Test results showed good aggregate interlocking property by coconut shells.

Keywords Coconut shell aggregate concrete  Bond strength of concrete  Pull-out test  Lightweight aggregate

Introduction development length, hooks, splicing, type of aggregate and

For the proper development of the strength of a reinforced
concrete section particularly in tension, both the rein-
forcement materials and concrete should be compatible and
act together in resisting the external load. To prevent the
discontinuity or separation of reinforcing material and the
surrounding concrete, both the materials should produce
the same strain or deformation along the contact surface
(Menon 2003). Bond strength resulting from the shear
interlock of the reinforcing bar and the enveloped concrete
is caused by various factors such as the adhesion between
the reinforcing bar and concrete, frictional resistance and
mechanical interlock between the two materials, quality
and strength of concrete in tension and compression,
mechanical anchorage effect of the end of the bars by its
& Yashida Nadir
yashidanadir@gmail.com; yashidanadir@cet.ac.in
A. Sujatha
a.sujatha89@gmail.com
1
Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering
Trivandrum, Thiruvananthapuram 695016, Kerala, India
2
Structural Engineering Division, Department of Civil
Engineering, College of Engineering Trivandrum,
Thiruvananthapuram 695016, Kerala, India
its maximum size, rebar composition and surface geometry
and rebar superficial state (Ganesan et al. 2014). Also, bond
strength depends on the diameter, shape and spacing of
reinforcement as they affect crack development. Evalua-
tion of bond strength between reinforcing bar and concrete
was done by different test methods such as pull-out test,
beam-end test, beam anchorage test and splice beam test
(Steele 2014). The ease of fabrication and testing made the
pull-out test most popular.
For deformed bars, out of the three bond mechanisms,
chemical adhesion which is formed during the hardening of
concrete will be lost during the initial slip. Major load
transfer mechanism is by friction and mechanical inter-
locking of the ribs present in the deformed bars bearing
against the concrete. Upon the action of external load on
the pull-out specimen, tangential stresses which are tensile
in nature act along the bar and radial stress develops per-
pendicular to the bar axis (Fig. 1a) (Appa Rao et al. 2007;
Kabir et al. 2014). The effect of this radial stress can be
considered, as the surrounding concrete behaves as a thick
walled concrete ring subjected to internal pressure. As a
result, tangential ring stress or hoop stress and radial
compressive stress develop in the concrete cover (Fig. 1b)
(Tastani et al. 2010). This hoop tensile stress in the con-
crete and the tensile bond stress acting along the bar get

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Fig. 1 a Shear stress
distribution in the XY plane of
concrete (Appa Rao et al. 2007;
Kabir et al. 2014), b transverse
stresses around a pulled bar
(Tastani et al. 2010), c Tensile-
stress distributions: (i) elastic,
(ii) partly cracked elastic and
(iii) plastic (Tepfers et al. 2003)
(a)
(i)
balanced. When the tensile stress exceeds the tensile
strength of concrete, cracks develops in the concrete cover
radially and the slip of the bar occurs (Fig. 1b) (Tastani
et al. 2010). When the stress increases, cracks grow along
the bar axis. Bond stress could be expressed at three dif-
ferent stages based on the crack condition of the concrete
cover such as uncracked elastic stage, partly cracked elastic
stage and the plastic stage (Fig. 1c) (Tepfers et al. 2003).
In the first two stages, bond stress will be maximum at
the interface of the concrete and steel bar, and minimum at
the outer concrete surface. After crack formation and with
the increase in slip, bond stress becomes uniformly dis-
tributed and the average bond stress (sb) is obtained as in
Eq. 1:
sb ¼ F=p/ld ; ð1Þ
where F is the force in bar (kN), / is the diameter of steel
bar (mm2) and ld is the embedded length of the steel bar
(mm).
Bond failure resulting from the pull-out test is classified
into three (Akbas et al. 2016) (Fig. 2): (a) pull-out failure
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Asian Journal of Civil Engineering
uncracked
concrete
cracked
concrete
concrete bar
cover diameter (b)
(c)
(ii) (iii)
of the steel bar from concrete; (b) splitting failure of con-
crete; (c) rupture of the steel bar.
Bond stress–slip behaviour by pull-out test was studied
by Casenova et al. (2013) to evaluate the bond strength as a
function of the concrete cover and stress state. To study the
influence of cracks on the bond strength of reinforced
concrete, Desnerck et al. (2015) conducted a pull-out test
on cracked cylindrical specimens. Split cylinder test was
used for the pre-cracking phases. The failure mode of
reinforced concrete varies with age. Song et al. (2015)
evaluated bond strength between early age concrete and
deformed bars considering different concrete strength and
concrete cover to bar diameter ratios. It was concluded that
bond strength was proportional to both the variables. A
comparison was made by Diab et al. (2014) between single
pull-out test and double pull-out test in normal and high-
strength concrete. For the study, numerous variables like
concrete cover, aggregate type, bar diameter, cement con-
tent, embedded length, etc. were considered. Equa-
tions were proposed by the study to calculate the ultimate
design bond stress. Bond strength assessment of high-
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Asian Journal of Civil Engineering
Fig. 2 Three modes of bond
failure in the pull-out test.
(i) Original specimen, (ii) pull-
out failure of the steel bar from
concrete, (iii) splitting failure of
concrete, (iv) rupture of the
steel bar
750 mm
100 mm
10 mm
100 mm
(i)
strength fibre-reinforced self-compacting concrete by pull-
out test was done by Filho et al. (2008). The effect of fibre
content, fibre length and bar diameter on bond strength was
observed.
The pull-out bond strength between geopolymer con-
crete and steel bars was studied by Castel and Foster
(2015). The geopolymer binder consisted of fly ash and
blended slag. A study was conducted both of deformed bars
and plain bars of 12 mm diameter. The bond strength was
assessed using RILEM pull-out test. An experimental study
was done by Chen et al. (2004) to assess the bond beha-
viour in lightweight and normal weight concrete by the
pull-out test. The study was done by pull-out test on high-
strength concrete using deformed bars. The bond properties
of lightweight aggregate concrete using oil palm shell were
determined by Teo et al. (2007) through the pull-out test.
Assaad and Issa (2012) conducted the pull-out test to study
the bond behaviour of epoxy-coated bars under water
concrete. The study provided useful information of the
effect of washout loss in bond properties. Lightweight
volcanic pumice (VPC) concrete was produced by Hossain
(2008) by incorporating crushed lightweight pumice. He
conducted pull-out test in VPC and normal concrete with
both plain and deformed bars. The study was conducted on
concrete for varying ages ranging from 1 to 28 days.
Evaluation of the bond behaviour by the pull-out test of
steel reinforcing bars in recycled fine aggregate concrete
was done by Kim and Yun (2014). Different replacement
levels of recycled fine aggregate were considered for the
study. Kim et al. (2015) also conducted a study on the bond
behaviour by pull-out test on recycled coarse aggregate
concrete.
There is a growing demand to find alternative building
materials that can be used as aggregates in producing
concrete
cracked
(ii) (iii) (iv)
sustainable concrete. Studies have been conducted on uti-
lizing coconut shell (CS) as aggregates in concrete (Leman
et al. 2017; Kalyana Chakravarthy et al. 2017). Gunase-
karan et al. (2011) conducted a study to investigate the
mechanical properties of coconut shell aggregate concrete
(CSAC) and concluded that coconut shell concrete can be
classified under structural lightweight concrete. Gunase-
karan et al. (2012) conducted a long-term study on the
compressive strength and bond strength of CSAC. Three
types of curing conditions were considered for studying the
long-term performance on CSAC. They found that the
ultimate bond strength of CSAC for all three types of
curing conditions was much higher than the theoretical
bond strength. Gunasekaran et al. (2013) conducted an
experimental study and concluded that coconut shell con-
crete reduced plastic shrinkage cracking. Fresh and hard-
ened properties including bond strength properties of
concrete using quarry dust as fine aggregate and CS as
coarse aggregate were studied by Gunasekaran et al.
(2017). The study concluded that the presence of quarry
dust augmented the mechanical and bond strength of
coconut shell aggregate concrete. A study of the durability
properties of coconut shell concrete was done by Nadir and
Sujatha (2018). The effects of fly ash and slag as partial
replacement of cement were also considered in the study.
Although extensive research studies have been con-
ducted on bond-slip behaviour in concrete using pull-out
tests, a relatively less number of studies have been per-
formed on lightweight aggregate concrete. In this research,
an experimental study was performed to evaluate bond
stress–slip behaviour of deformed bars in coconut shell
aggregate concrete. Deformed bars were with 12 and
16 mm diameters. Bond-slip behaviour and bond strength
were assessed by conducting a pull-out test. Coarse
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Asian Journal of Civil Engineering

Fig. 3 Coconut shells and

crushed coconut shell
aggregates

aggregate was replaced by coconut shell aggregate by 25, The mix proportion is expressed as cement:fine aggre-
50, 75 and 100% by weight. gate:coarse aggregate:coconut shell:water–cement ratio.
Fresh and hardened properties were determined for these
mixes. Fresh property obtained was the slump of all the
Experimental programme mixes with the required percentage replacement of coarse
aggregate by CS. Hardened properties of these mixes such
Materials as compressive strength were determined by standard cubes
of size 150 mm, split tensile strength by cylinders of
Coconut shells were collected from the local oil mills and diameter 150 mm and height 300 mm and flexural strength
immersed in water for a week for seasoning. The seasoned using beam specimens of 700 9 150 9 150 mm size.
CS was crushed. Coconut shells and crushed coconut shell These properties were obtained at 28 days after casting.
aggregates are shown in Fig. 3. The results obtained are given in Table 3.
The surface texture of the shell was fairly smooth on the
concave and rough on the convex faces. So, convex faces Pull-out test programme
were cleaned before crushing. CS aggregates used were in
saturated surface dry (SSD) condition. The properties of Preparation of specimens
coarse aggregate (crushed granites) and coconut shells are
given in Table 1. The pull-out test specimens were cast in cubes as per IS
Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) 53 Grade conforming 2770:1967 (reaffirmed 2002) specifications. Deformed
to Indian Standard IS 12269:1987 was used as a binder. M steel bars were used for the study. Cubes of 150 mm size
sand passing through 4.75 mm sieve conforming to grading
zone II of IS 383:1970 was used as fine aggregate. The Table 1 Properties of coarse aggregate and coconut shell aggregate
specific gravity and fineness modulus of the fine aggregate
Properties Coarse aggregate Coconut shell aggregate
were 2.64 and 2.66, respectively. Continuously graded
crushed granite aggregate with nominal maximum particle Maximum size (mm) 12 12
size of 12 mm was used as coarse aggregate. The coarse Specific gravity 2.82 1.15
aggregates had specific gravity and fineness modulus of Bulk density (kg/m3) 1600 650
2.82 and 7.0, respectively. Deformed steel bars complying Fineness modulus 7.0 6.78
with IS 1786:2000 were used to evaluate the bond beha-
viour of reinforcement embedded in CSAC. 12 and
16 mm-diameter deformed bars were used for the study.
Table 2 Mix proportions
Mix proportioning and concrete casting Mix designation Mix proportion

CSAC0 1:1.47:0.65:0:0.42
Five mixes were considered with 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100%
CSAC25 1:1.47:0.49:0.43:0.42
replacement of coarse aggregate by coconut shell. The
CSAC50 1:1.47:0.33:0.86:0.42
mixes were designated as CSAC0, CSAC25, CSAC50,
CSAC75 1:1.47:0.16:1.29:0.42
CSAC75 and CSAC100, respectively. Concrete of M25
grade was used. Mix proportions were adopted from liter- CSC100 1:1.47:0:1.72:0.42
ature (Gunasekaran et al. 2013) and are given in Table 2.

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Asian Journal of Civil Engineering

Table 3 Fresh and hardened properties

Mix Slump (mm) Compressive strength (N/mm2) Split tensile strength (N/mm2) Flexural strength (N/mm2)

CSAC0 50 34.77 2.77 5.15

CSAC25 44 33.33 2.69 5.08
CSAC50 38 32.44 2.64 4.97
CSAC75 30 31.24 2.58 4.89
CSAC100 20 30.23 2.53 4.68

Fig. 4 a Base plate for cube,

b helical reinforcement

were used for 16 mm-diameter bars and 100 mm size for

12 mm-diameter bars. Cube moulds were prepared with
specially made base plates as shown in Fig. (4a). Steel bars
were embedded vertically along the central axis of each
specimen. The bar was projected down for a distance of
about 10 mm from the bottom face and projected upward
from the top face of the cube by 750 mm (Fig. 2i). This
provided sufficient length to the bar to extend through the
bearing blocks of the testing machine and to obtain ade-
quate fixity. The cubes were reinforced with a helix of
6 mm-diameter steel bar conforming to Grade I of IS:432-
1:1982 at 25 mm pitch as per IS 2770:1967. The outer
diameter of the helix was equal to the size of the cube.
Helical reinforcement for the pull-out specimens are given
in Fig. 4b. Totally, 30 cubes (Fig. 5) were cast for the test.
For each case, three samples are cast, and also all the
tables and figures are presented for the average values of
these three samples for each case. Fig. 5 Cubes cast

Test setup and instrumentation

The specimen to be tested was mounted in a universal containing a hole to accommodate the bar. Test specimens
testing machine (UTM) of 30 t capacity such that the bar were loaded axially and the pull was applied to the
was pulled axially from the cube. The bearing surface of extended length of the bars projected from the top face of
the concrete cube was supported on a round steel plate the cube. Dial gauges of 0.002 mm least count as specified

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Fig. 6 Pull-out test setup
in IS 2770:1967 were used for measuring the slip or pull-
out of the bar with respect to the concrete at the loaded and
free ends of the bar. The test setup is shown in the Fig. 6.
As per IS 2770:1967, dial gauge readings were recorded
at different loads and loading was continued until:
1. the yield point of the reinforcing bars was reached,
2. the enclosing concrete failed or
3. a minimum slippage of 2.5 mm occurred at the loaded
end.
Also, the complete load–slip curves were plotted and the
following details were recorded:
1. the load at a slip of 0025 mm at the free end and
2. the load at a slip of 0.25 mm at the free end.
Results
During the test, pull-out load and the slip of the reinforcing
bars were measured. The pull-out load was converted into
bond stress (sb) as per Eq. 1. For all the specimens, sb
values at 0.025, 0.250 mm slip and ultimate bond stress
were calculated. The results of the pull-out test with
varying percentage of CS aggregate and bar diameters are
given in Table 4.
Modes of failure
The modes of bond stress failure for all the types of
specimens tested are given in Table 4. Among the modes
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Asian Journal of Civil Engineering
of failure, splitting failure in concrete was not noticed.
Only pull-out failure of steel bar from concrete and rupture
of steel bar were noticed (Figs. 7 and 8). In specimens for
all percentage replacement by CS, rupture of steel bar
occurred for 12 mm-diameter rebar specimens at maxi-
mum bond stress. For 16 mm-diameter rebar specimens,
failure occurred by pull-out failure of rebar for all per-
centage replacement of coarse aggregate of CS. Pull-out
failure was accompanied by a slight crushing of concrete at
the toe of the bar ribs as shown in Fig. 8. With increase in
the axial force for large diameter bars, the ribs in the
deformed bars crush the concrete by bearing, leading to the
pull-out of the bars from the specimen (Chen et al. 2004).
Therefore, for 12 mm rebar specimens, reading was taken
up to the rupture of steel which is mentioned as yielding of
the reinforcing bars in IS 2770:1967 (Ganesan et al. 2014).
For 16 mm rebar specimens, readings were noted up to the
pull-out of the bars. Splitting failure of enclosed concrete
as mentioned in IS 2770:1967 was not present in the tested
CSAC specimens due to the presence of spirals in the
specimens. The confinement provided by the spirals pre-
vented or minimized the splitting cracks in concrete.
Confinement can also be provided by increase in concrete
cover (Appa Rao et al. 2007). They resist hoop stress and
increase the bond strength.
Bond stress–slip response
The relative displacement of the steel rebar with respect to
the surrounding concrete is defined as the slip. The average
bond stress vs slip for 12 and 16 mm-diameter bars for
various percentages of replacement of aggregate is plotted
and shown in Figs. 9 and 10.
The overall bond stress–slip curves observed for 12 and
16 mm-diameter bars embedded in CSAC specimens for
all percentage replacement were almost similar.
The bond stress–slip response consisted of two regions
similar to that obtained by other researchers (Almusallam
et al. 1996; Al-Negheimish et al. 2004). The first region
was approximately up to a bond stress of 8.5 MPa (Figs. 8
and 9) for 12 and 16 mm bar specimens, characterized by
higher stiffness than the second region. The decreased
stiffness in the second region is due to the increase in the
slip of the rebar due to the loss of adhesion between con-
crete and steel, and the formation of microcracks in that
region (Al-Negheimish et al. 2004). For the calculation of
bond stress, Eq. 1 was used by assuming uniform stress
distribution along a short bond length. The ultimate bond
strength is defined as the bond stress corresponding to the
ultimate load recorded during testing.
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Asian Journal of Civil Engineering

Table 4 Test results

Mix Diameter of embedded bar Bond stress at 0.025 mm slip Bond stress at 0.25 mm slip Ultimate bond stress Failure
(mm) (MPa) (MPa) (MPa) type

CSAC0 12 10.74 – – Steel

rupture
CSAC25 12 10.21 – – Steel
rupture
CSAC50 12 9.59 – – Steel
rupture
CSAC75 12 9.53 – – Steel
rupture
CSAC100 12 9.03 – – Steel
rupture
CSAC0 16 9.80 15.28 15.91 Pull-out
CSAC25 16 9.62 12.80 15.34 Pull-out
CSAC50 16 9.52 12.57 14.90 Pull-out
CSAC75 16 9.34 12.52 14.11 Pull-out
CSAC100 16 9.04 12.51 13.54 Pull-out

20 CSAC0 CSAC25 CSAC50 CSAC75 CSAC100

15
Bond stress(N/mm2)

10

0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
Slip(mm)

Fig. 9 Bond stress–slip response of 12 mm rebar for various CS

percentages

Fig. 7 Steel rupture failure CSAC0 CSAC25 CSAC50 CSAC75 CSAC100

18
16
14
Bond stress(N/mm2)

12
10
8
6
4
2
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
Slip (mm)

Fig. 10 Bond stress–slip response of 16 mm rebar for various CS

percentages

Fig. 8 Pull-out failure

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Response of CSAC specimens with 12 mm-diameter bar
For 12 mm-diameter bar embedded in CSAC specimens,
bond stress at 0.250 mm slip and ultimate bond stress are
not reported in Table 4, as these specimens failed by rup-
ture of the rebar (Ganesan et al. 2014). The bond stress at
0.025 mm slip for a 12 mm-diameter bar was highest for
normal concrete followed by CS replacement of 25, 50, 75
and 100%. The percentage reduction in bond stress at
0.025 mm slip for 25, 50, 75 and 100% replacement by CS
was approximately 4.93, 10.71, 11.27 and 15.92%,
respectively, with respect to normal concrete.
The response of CSAC specimens with 16 mm-diameter bar
16 mm-diameter bar-embedded CSAC specimens failed by
pull-out. For these specimens, bond stress at 0.025 mm,
0.25 mm slip and ultimate bond stress were recorded and
are shown in Table 4. For these specimens, the largest of
all these values were exhibited by normal concrete. The
percentage reduction in bond stress at 0.025 mm slip for
25, 50, 75 and 100% replacement by CS was approxi-
mately 1.84, 2.86, 4.69 and 7.76%, respectively, with
respect to normal concrete. The percentage reduction in
bond stress at 0.25 mm slip for 25% CS was approximately
16.23%, and that for 50, 75 and 100% replacement was
approximately 17.74, 18.06 and 18.13% with respect to
normal concrete. The corresponding percentage reduction
for ultimate bond strength was approximately 3.58, 6.34,
11.31 and 14.89%.
Discussion
No significant reduction in bond strength was observed for
various percentage replacements of CS compared with
normal concrete. This is because of the higher amount of
cement content and the lower amount of w/c ratio used in
the concrete mix. The interfacial transition zone is
improved by the increased cement paste quality due to the
higher cement content (Mo et al. 2015; Bogas et al. 2014).
Literature shows a direct relationship between bond
strength and cement content irrespective of the type of
aggregate (Mo et al. 2015). Also, the lesser w/c ratio
decreased the bleeding and shrinkage of concrete. This
decreases the internal cracks and results in better bonding.
Lesser w/c ratio increases the friction between the steel bar
and surrounding concrete (Bogas et al. 2014; Chori et al.
2008).
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Asian Journal of Civil Engineering
Comparison of bond strength of CSAC
with available theoretical models
Few theoretical models are available for the prediction of
bond behaviour of lightweight concrete (LWC). The
equations proposed by some researchers for LWC (Mo
et al. 2016) are given in Eqs. 2–4 (Mo et al. 2015; Tang
et al. 2008; Sancak 2009) considering the relationship
between bond strength and compressive strength of
concrete.
 0:5
sb ¼ 4:5 fc0 ; ð2Þ
 0 0:28
sb ¼ 1:31 fc ; ð3Þ
sb ¼ 0:63f 0:714
cu ; ð4Þ
0
where fc is cylinder compressive strength and fcu is cube
compressive strength. Comparison between the test results
and the above equations is given in Table 5.
It was found that the (fc0 )0.5 relation with bond strength
overestimated the experimental bond strength value, and
the relation of sb with compressive strength of concrete
(fc0 )0.28 and (fcu)0.714 underestimated the bond strength. In
addition to compressive strength, the effects of bar diam-
eter and bond length in the bond strength equation for
bottom ash aggregate LWC were incorporated by Kim
et al. (2013), as shown in Eq. 5 (Kim et al. 2013):
"" # #
37:5
sb ¼ 1  9:4 fc0 0:5 ; ð5Þ
ðd þ lÞ4
where d is the reinforcing bar diameter (mm), l is the bond
length (mm) and fc’ is the cylinder compressive strength.
In the present study, the diameter of the rebar is different.
As per IS 2770:1967 (reaffirmed 2002), cube size for pull-
out test is different for different rebar diameter, and so the
bond length and cover to reinforcement. Yang et al. (2012)
proposed bond strength equation for ceramsite LWC based
on the concrete c/d ratio as shown in Eq. 6 (Yang et al.
2012). The comparison of results is shown in Table 6.
h  c i
sb ¼ 4:41 þ 0:65 ft ; ð6Þ
d
where ft is the tensile strength of concrete and c/d is the
concrete cover to diameter ratio.
From the above comparisons, it was found that the
experimental bond strength values were comparable to the
theoretical bond strength values obtained from the pro-
posed equation by Yang et al. (2012) for ceramsite LWC.
Prediction of CSAC bond strength
For the prediction of bond strength of CSAC for various
percentage replacements by coconut shells, a regression
 Author's personal copy
Asian Journal of Civil Engineering

Table 5 Comparison between experimental bond strength and LWC models

Mix Experimental bond strength (MPa) Bond strength 4.5(fc’)0.5 Bond strength 1.31(fc’)0.28 Bond strength 0.63f0.714
cu
(MPa) (Mo et al. 2015) (MPa) (Tang et al. 2008) (MPa) (Sancak 2009)

CSAC0 15.91 23.72 3.32 7.93

CSAC25 15.34 23.22 3.27 7.70
CSAC50 14.90 22.9 3.25 7.55
CSAC75 14.11 22.49 3.22 7.35
CSAC100 13.54 22.12 3.19 7.18

Table 6 Comparison between experimental results of CSAC with theoretical model of LWC
Mix Experimental bond LWC with bottom ash aggregate (MPa) Ceramsite LWC by Yang et al. (curing period) (MPa)
strength (MPa) (Kim et al. 2013) (Yang et al. 2012)

CSAC0 15.91 5.52 19.75

CSAC25 15.34 5.40 19.18
CSAC50 14.90 5.33 18.82
CSAC75 14.11 5.23 18.39
CSAC100 13.54 5.15 18.04

0.82
Table 7 Comparison between experimental and predicted values of
0.81 bond strength
0.8
bexp/ bth = -0.0006P + 0.8115 Specimen sbexp (MPa) sbpred (MPa) sbexp/sbpred
bexp/ bth

0.79 R² = 0.9363
CSAC0 15.91 16.027 0.993
0.78
CSAC25 15.34 15.507 0.989
0.77
CSAC50 14.90 14.708 1.013
0.76
CSAC75 14.11 14.096 1.001
0.75
CSAC100 13.54 13.557 0.998
0.74
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Average COV (%) 0.999
Percentage coconut shells(P) 0.919

Fig. 11 Plot of sb(exp)/sb(th) vs percentage of coconut shell (P)

analysis was done. The variables used for the model were
sb(exp)/sb(th) and the percentage of coconut shell (P) as
shown in Fig. 11. sb(th) is the bond strength equation by
Yang et al. (2012):
sbexp ¼ sbth ð0:0006P þ 0:8115Þ:
Replacing sbexp of the above Eq. 7 by sbpred,
sbpred ¼ sbth ð0:0006P þ 0:8115Þ:
Comparison was made between the predicted bond
strength values and the obtained experimental results as
shown in Table 7.
The ratio ranges from 0.993 to 1.013. This shows sat-
isfactory prediction by the proposed equation.
Conclusions
1. Bond stress at 0.025 mm slip for a 12 mm-diameter
bar was highest for normal concrete and decreased as
coconut shell aggregate percentage increased.
ð7Þ 2. Percentage reductions in bond stress at 0.025 mm slip
for 25, 50, 75 and 100% replacement by CS for a
12 mm-diameter rebar specimens were approximately
ð8Þ 4.93, 10.71, 11.27 and 15.92% with respect to normal
concrete.
3. For 16 mm bar-embedded specimens, the percentage
reductions of bond stress at 0.025 slip for 25, 50, 75
and 100% replacement were approximately 1.84, 2.86,
4.69 and 7.76% with respect to normal concrete.
4. Percentage reductions of bond stress for 16 mm bar-
embedded specimens at 0.25 slip for 25, 50, 75, 100%

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 Author's personal copy
replacement with that of normal concrete were
approximately 16.23, 17.74, 18.06 and 18.13%,
respectively.
5. Percentage reductions of ultimate bond strength for
16 mm bar CSAC specimens with 25, 50, 75, 100%
replacement by CS were approximately 3.58, 6.34,
11.31 and 14.89%, respectively, compared with that of
normal concrete.
6. The bond strength decreased with increased rebar
diameter and coconut shell aggregate replacement
percentage.
7. A method was proposed for predicting the bond
strength of CSAC for various percentage replacements
by CS.
8. In general, CSAC exhibited good aggregate interlock-
ing property.
9. CS is an agricultural by-product. The fuel value of this
material has been depleting. So the effective utilization
of this renewable source as a construction material for
producing sustainable concrete assumes some
significance.
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