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Concrete Construction Article PDF - Pullout Testing of Concrete PDF
Concrete Construction Article PDF - Pullout Testing of Concrete PDF
BY JOHN A. BICKLEY
TROW LTD., CONSULTING ENGINEERS
The test bolt in- Concrete is The form (or part of A pull bolt is By applying a
cluding disc and placed. the form) and the screwed into the disc, force with the in-
stem is mounted stem of the test bolt and the instrument is strument a small
on the inside of the are removed. mounted on the sur- piece of the con-
form prior to plac- face of the concrete. crete is dislodged.
ing concrete.
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 calculat- p re s s i ve strength by making groups of cylinders and
ed. The minimum pullout strength of the pour is then testing them at various strength levels. Recently, in the
calculated by deducting the standard deviation times a light of the data obtained from many tests in No rt h
constant (which varies with the number of tests made) America, it has been concluded that an accurate correla-
from the mean strength of the results. This result gives tion can be obtained, provided a range of strengths
the minimum strength in a pour to 95 percent confi- above 3000 psi is included in the correlation tests and
dence levels. Since all the tests are made on actual con- provided each point on the curve represents at least two
crete in the structure, the strength calculated by this sys- tests.
tem is a statistically valid measurement of the strength of The manufacturer of the equipment described pub-
the element. lishes a recommended straight-line relationship to use
A primary use of pullout testing is to determine the in relating pullout force to the compressive strength of
safe removal time for forms or the earliest time at which standard cylinders. In North America a slightly different
post-tensioning may take place, and it is essential that relationship has been found; the reason for this is not
the results do not contain any error. A procedure has clear except that in Denmark cylinders are not capped
therefore been adopted whereby the results are phoned before they are tested in compression.
through to a central office where personnel have pro- In recent tests comparing pullout tests and cores from
grammed calculators similar to those used by the tech- uniform slabs of concrete it has been concluded that,
nicians in the field. The results are recalculated and con- while slightly higher, the variation of a pullout test is of
firmed on the telephone to the technician who then the same order of magnitude as that of a standard cylin-
knows that no arithmetical errors have been made. A der. It has also been shown by calculation from these da-
standard form is used to present the results to the con- ta that the effect of the testing variation of a pullout test
tractor or other authorized person on site. On this form has very little effect on the value for minimum strength
are stated limits which have been agreed upon with the of a pour of concrete calculated by the procedure de-
structural engineer for form removal or post-tensioning scribed earlier. The pullout test can therefore be used to
and all results are given, together with the mean determine accurately and reliably the actual strength of
strength, standard deviation, and calculated minimum concrete in a pour.
strength. In addition, a three-dimensional reference is In 1978, the American Society for Testing and Materi-
shown, relating the tests to the element of the structure als published a tentative standard on pullout testing,
on which they were conducted. This form is signed by ASTM C 900-78T, “Tentative Test Method for Pullout
the technician and given to the contractor who signs a Strength of Hardened Concrete.” This tentative standard
copy which is retained by the testing authority. By this is currently being revised and it is hoped that a full stan-
procedure, the possibility of an error is minimized and dard will be approved by ASTM in the very near future.
both parties have a written record of what has been
agreed. Pros and cons of pullout testing
There are now more than 30 testing devices of the
Correlating pullout test results with type described being used in North America and to date
other test results something on the order of 20,000 tests have been car-
Because the standard measure of the strength of con- ried out. Primary use for the system has been in either
crete in North America has for the last 75 years been de- controlling formwork removal and time of post-ten-
termined using concrete cylinder compression tests, it is sioning, or determining the minimum amount of curing
now necessary to relate the results of pullout tests to needed in cold weather conditions. The system has
these standard tests. Correlation between pullout been used on cooling towers, chimneys, multistory
strength and compressive strength can be easily deter- building frames, pipelines, bridges and other forms of
mined by making standard cylinders in which pullout construction.
inserts are cast. It has been the practice in Canada to cast Pullout testing lends itself to accelerated construc-
sets of 10 cylinders, each containing a pullout insert in tion programs and if properly applied can be used in
the bottom. The pullout test is first carried out and load conjunction with selected concrete mixes to help build
is applied just to failure. The cylinder is then capped and multistory frames more rapidly than normal. Because fi-
tested in the normal manner. Prior to capping, the top of nancing and other costs are currently very high, a reduc-
the cylinder containing the pullout insert is tapped care- tion in construction time can result in significant finan-
fully with a hammer to assure that the slightly dislodged cial benefits to the owner and other parties to a contract.
cone of concrete is hammered back into its original po- With the system of pullout testing described, the in-
sition in the cylinder. Extensive comparison tests using serts have to be preplaced in the forms before concret-
groups of cylinders containing pullout inserts and those ing. Many people feel that this is a disadvantage al-
without inserts have shown that the presence of the in- though in practice we do not find this to be so. On
sert makes no difference in the compressive strength test almost all sites, the inserts are placed by the contractor’s
results obtained with the cylinder. It is therefore easy to forces and less than 3 percent are lost due to faulty in-
obtain correlations between pullout strength and com- stallation. More inserts than needed are placed in case
initial tests show values lower than required. There is While a major concern of the writer and other persons
then an adequate number of inserts for testing later to is safety, it is very difficult to persuade people to use a
satisfy statistical needs. system on the basis of safety alone. Howe ve r, pullout
Because the inserts are placed throughout the pour testing does have the potential to become one of the
and in relatively large numbers, the writer believes that prime systems used to determine safe removal times for
with normal supervision there is no practical way for a formwork. It is possible that in the not too distant future
contractor to influence the test results. this and other in-place test methods will be written into
For those who still prefer to select test locations after the applicable codes and will at least under some cir-
the concrete has hardened, a new method of pullout cumstances become a mandatory procedure.
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 man-
ner. The dimensions of the insert and its distance from PUBLICATION #C810577
the concrete surface are the same as for the standard Copyright © 1981, The Aberdeen Group
pullout inserts shown in Figure 3. All rights reserved