Construction and Building Materials 205 (2019) 61–72

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Construction and Building Materials

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

Aggregate size effects and general static loading response on mechanical

behavior of passively confined concrete
I.A. Tijani a, Yu-Fei Wu b, C.W. Lim a,⇑
a
Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
b
School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia

h i g h l i g h t s

Effect of 3D compression tests on concrete with varying aggregate sizes was examined.

Model for transitional stress of concrete with varying aggregate sizes was proposed.

A new stress-strain model was proposed.

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

Article history: There exist limited studies on the size effects on mechanical behavior of confined concrete subjected to
Received 26 September 2018 general three dimensional (3D) loading conditions. In this study, a novel general 3D loading test system is
Received in revised form 7 January 2019 applied to create passive confinement. Concrete cube specimens were tested to examine the size effects
Accepted 27 January 2019
on the material stress-strain behavior. Based on the conceptual design of the confining system, models
are proposed for the confining pressure and confining rigidity for 3D passive confinement. Using test data
and for non-uniform confined concrete, increasing stress and lateral strain with increases in axial strain
Keywords:
can be established. The size effect on 3D stress-strain relationship is scrutinized and compared to stress-
3D compression
Aggregate
strain relationship benchmarks available. It is observed that the compressive stress and strain are related
Concrete to the confining rigidity and size. The size shows a significant effect on the transition stress. A new model
Passive confinement is proposed to illustrate the transition stress based on the conceptual design of confining plates.
Size effect Furthermore, a new stress-strain model for confined concrete is also proposed based on test results.
Stress-strain model Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Transition stress

1. Introduction
Reinforced concrete (RC) columns may need to be strengthened
and reinforced because of life and material deterioration due to
defects, excessive loadings, and any sudden or repetitive impact
and damages that might be caused by natural or unexpected exci-
tation. Confining RC columns with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP)
has been proven to have successfully and effectively enhanced
the strength and ductility of structural component [1,2]. High
strength-to-weight ratio and high corrosion resistance of passive
confined composites make FRP preferable to other construction
materials like steel for strength enhancement.
The application of FRP composites for strengthening RC col-
umns has received much attention from material scientists and
researchers, and it has been widely applied in construction indus-
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: bccwlim@cityu.edu.hk (C.W. Lim).
tries [3]. However, relatively less attention has been given to the
aggregate size effects which have great potential influence on the
stress-strain behavior of concrete [4]. Jiang et al. [5] highlighted
that the variation in concrete properties was a result of the signif-
icant effects of aggregate size and other concrete variables. Based
on fracture mechanics and energy method, Kim et al. [6] consid-
ered coarse aggregate sizes and extended Bazant’s law [7] of size
effects for the investigation of concrete strength. Kim et al. [6] con-
cluded that aggregate size is insignificant in the law for uniaxial
size effect.
Over the years, numerous studies have been conducted to
investigate the effect of aggregate size on stress-strain relationship
of concrete, for brevity, [8–18]. Jiang et al. [5] stated that the rela-
tive size effects between aggregate and specimen was usually
neglected in the previous studies. This effect is small based on
the law of aggregate size under uniaxial compression, however, it
could be different for concrete under general 3D loading
conditions.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2019.01.164
0950-0618/Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
62 I.A. Tijani et al. / Construction and Building Materials 205 (2019) 61–72

Nomenclature

AV average value fc compressive strength of concrete

0
Ab area of elastic bar fc compressive strength of standard cylinder
Abx area of bar along x-axis f cc stress at the last point of the curve
Abz area of bar along z-axis f co unconfined compressive strength
Ac area of concrete fl confining pressure
b diameter of a circular column or side length of a square h height of the specimen
column i number of experiment data
B,b, a, k0 , and m dimensionless parameters IAE integral absolute error
C 1 , C 2 , C 3 and n constants k1 confinement effectiveness coefficient
d width of the specimen Lb length of elastic bar
da maximum aggregate size Lbx length of bar along x-axis
Eb elastic modulus of bar Lbz length of bar along z-axis
Ebx elastic modulus of bar along x-axis Lc length of concrete
Ebz elastic modulus of bar along z-axis R2 R-squared in statistical analysis
Eco elastic modulus of concrete tf thickness of FRP material
Ef elastic modulus of FRP material Ti analytical result
Ei experimental data xz directions of confinement
El confining rigidity d size effect factor
E1 initial modulus eb strain of elastic bar
E2 hardening modulus ec axial strain of concrete
0
f actual concrete strength considering size effect ecc strain value at the last point of the curve
fo transition stress eco unconfined strain
0
fo transition stress atec ¼ eo eo transition strain

The studies on effects of aggregate size on concrete dated back
to the early 1900s [19] but the studies on the influence of size
effects on concrete subjected to multiaxial compression began very
much later in 1990s. Theriault et al. [20] investigated the size
effects on columns by testing 24 FRP-confined and 18 unconfined
concrete cylinders and concluded that the size effects on compres-
sive strength was significant in specimens with 50 mm diameter.
Based on the size effects of square concrete columns subjected to
axial compression, Masia et al. [21] highlighted that an increase
in cross-sectional size caused a slight reduction in peak axial strain.
Wang and Wu [22] studied the effect of aggregate size on aramid
FRP confined concrete short columns and found out that the aggre-
gate size had a significant effect on both the transitional and ulti-
mate strength of low confinement columns.
Some studies pointed out that size effect on strain was insignif-
icant when specimen size increases. Ozbakkaloglu [23] and Carey
and Harries [24] demonstrated that the size effect on ultimate
stress and strain relationship was insignificant. Wang et al. [25]
stated that an increase in size effect could decrease the confine-
ment effect of FRP-confined concrete columns with the same con-
finement and corner radius ratios. Chen and Leung [26] studied the
size effect under a biaxial compression loading and found out that
the concrete rupture property was significantly affected by speci-
men size. A larger size aggregate could increase the biaxial com-
pressive strength of the specimen. On the other hand, the study
highlighted that the increase in aggregate size reduced the uniaxial
compressive strength. Similar conclusions were drawn in a few
other studies [27,28]. Wang and Song [29] conducted tests for
three different aggregate sizes of concrete cubes with biaxial com-
pression loading and found out that the aggregate size did not
affect the failure mode. However, an increase in stress ratio was
the factor responsible for the failure mode to change from splitting
to shear type [30–32]. Li et al. [33] examined the size effects under
a triaxial loading condition and found out that the axial stress-
strain relationship of all specimens were similar in the beginning
and ultimate stages while a larger aggregate produced a high stress
at the turning point of the stress-strain curves. Jiang et al. [5]
concluded that the aggregate size showed no significant effects
on the stress-strain relationship of unconfined concrete. However,
there was a significant effect in the transition region of the stress-
strain curve of FRP-confined concrete.
On the other hand, to examine the mechanical response of non-
uniform confined concrete, Lam and Teng [34] and Wei and Wu
[35] introduced confinement efficiency factor for equivalent uni-
formly confined concrete column. However such approach could
not be adopted for non-uniform three-dimensional loading scheme
[36] and no experimental data was available for the calibration of
such material parameters and response [37]. Furthermore, the
existing triaxial concrete test equipment could hardly capture
the mechanical behavior and dilation properties of concrete sub-
jected to 3D loading after peak stress [37]. To address the afore-
mentioned issues, Mohammadi and Wu [37] developed and
fabricated a 3D test system with reference to experience acquired
from the earlier fabricated and implemented test system by Jiang
et al. [38,39]. The system was recently used by Jiang et al. [36] to
examine the true-triaxial compressive behavior of passively con-
fined concrete.
From the literature discussed above and to the authors’ knowl-
edge, no conclusion has been found that derived aggregate size
effects under general 3D loading conditions. To bridge this research
gap, this study presents an investigation on the mechanical behav-
ior of passively confined concrete cube with varying aggregate
sizes under such 3D loading conditions.
2. Experiment setup and preparation
2.1. Specimen preparation
For all experimental specimens used in this study, the con-
crete cubes were 150 mm in size while the aggregate sizes used
were 5 mm, 10 mm and 20 mm. The specific gravity, absorption
capacity and density of coarse aggregate are 2.64, 0.65% and
1580 kg/m3, respectively, while the specific gravity, absorption
 I.A. Tijani et al. / Construction and Building Materials 205 (2019) 61–72 63

capacity and density of fine aggregate are 2.52, 1.25%, and
1454 kg/m3, respectively. To avoid concentration of smaller
aggregates near the cube surface known as the wall effect [40],
aggregates of the same size were used in a particular specimen.
The aggregates that passed 10 mm aperture and retained on
5 mm aperture was consider as 5 mm aggregates, the aggregates
that passed 14 mm aperture and retained on 10 mm aperture
was consider as 10 mm aggregates and the aggregates that
passed 37.5 mm aperture and retained on 20 mm aperture was
consider as 20 mm aggregates. Details of the sieving procedure
can be referred to Jiang et al. [5]. Two different mixtures shown
in Table 1 were used for concrete with all aggregate sizes to pro-
duce two different concrete grades.
Prior to casting, coarse and fine aggregates were completely
dried at 110 °C for a period of 24 h to avoid variation of water
content. The specimen was mixed using a standard mixer and
casted into steel molds in the laboratory. After casting for 24 h,
the specimens were de-molded and placed in a curing tank at
room temperature for 28 days. The specimen was removed from
the tank after curing and the top surface were grinded to provide
a smooth contact with the loading plate. The other surfaces of
the concrete cube were cleaned with water and left to dry before
passively confined by fabricated aluminum plates during the
experiment.
For uniform lateral confinement, the specimen ID indicates the
concrete grade, aggregate size and the details of the restraining bar
as shown in Table 2. For instance, A-d20-2 signifies a specimen
with mix ID of A made from aggregate size of 20 mm and confined
with a restraining bar corresponding to 2 ply of carbon-FRP. Mean-
while, for the non-uniform lateral confinement, the specimen ID
specifies the concrete grade, the aggregate size and the non-
uniform restraining bars as shown in Table 3. Similarly, A-d5-ZY
denotes the concrete grade, followed by the specimen size and
lastly the details of restraining bars in x and z directions, respec-
tively. They are three restraining bars, namely X, Y, and Z corre-
spond to 0.5, 1 and 2 ply of carbon-FRP, respectively. The
confinement equivalence of the restraining bar is obtained from
carbon-FRP with a Young modulus of 245 GPa and a thickness of
0.165 mm. More details about the retraining bars can be found in
Mohammadi and Wu [37].
2.2. Testing and instrumentation

The 3D compression tests were conducted using MTS rock

Table 1 machine of 1600 kN capacity accompanied with a biaxial fabri-
Specimen mixtures. cated aluminum confining plates by Mohammadi and Wu [37].
Mix Specific weight (kg/m3) Water/cement The concrete cube was placed within two aluminum plates as illus-
ID ratio trated in Fig. 1a. Thereafter, the confining plate was coupled along
Cement Fine Coarse Water x-direction, as presented in Fig. 1b. The Young’s modulus and yield
aggregate aggregate
strength of the confining plates are 71 GPa and 675 MPa [37]. In
A 395 800 850 256.75 0.65 addition, strain gauges as shown in Fig. 1b were mounted on each
B 275 900 920 233.75 0.85 bars to acquire dilation from the lateral directions. Subsequently,

Table 2
Specimen details for cubes under uniform lateral confinement.



Specimen ID f co ðMPaÞ eco 106 f cc ðMPaÞ ecc 106 f cc =f co ecc =eco

A-d5-0.5 28.42 5168 30.93 6195 1.09 1.20

A-d5-1 44.68 22,443 1.57 4.34
A-d5-2 53.03 29,181 1.87 5.65
A-d10-0.5 32.92 4400 36.01 5695 1.09 1.29
A-d10-1 53.20 21,558 1.62 4.90
A-d10-2 67.97 31,400 2.06 7.14
A-d20-0.5 34.51 18,387 38.12 24,778 1.10 1.35
A-d20-1 69.50 30,298 2.01 1.65
A-d20-2 85.45 39,981 2.48 2.17
B-d5-0.5 20.31 16,988 22.12 19,777 1.09 1.16
B-d5-1 27.08 23,856 1.33 1.40
B-d5-2 32.56 31,666 1.60 1.86
B-d10-0.5 23.02 19,830 28.89 22,568 1.26 1.14
B-d10-1 31.82 26,282 1.38 1.33
B-d10-2 38.66 31,666 1.68 1.60
B-d20-0.5 26.00 13,792 31.67 24,253 1.22 1.76
B-d20-1 37.21 28,723 1.43 2.08
B-d20-2 45.59 33,803 1.75 2.45

Table 3
Specimen details for cubes under non-uniform lateral confinement.



Specimen ID f co ðMPaÞ eco 106 f cc ðMPaÞ ecc 106 f cc =f co ecc =eco

A-d5-ZY 30.12 8684 48.57 26,224 1.61 3.99

A-d5-XZ 41.52 17,632 1.38 2.68
A-d5-YX 35.39 12,869 1.17 1.96
A-d10-ZY 33.56 6566 60.22 26,347 1.79 4.68
A-d10-XZ 52.09 18,334 1.55 3.25
A-d10-YX 44.44 13,254 1.32 2.35
A-d20-ZY 38.65 22,387 79.10 35,076 2.05 1.57
A-d20-XZ 63.24 32,253 1.64 1.44
A-d20-YX 53.44 27,292 1.38 1.22
64 I.A. Tijani et al. / Construction and Building Materials 205 (2019) 61–72

(a) Uniaxial loading setup (b) Bi-axial loading setup

(c) Adjustment of plate using plumb level (d) 3D test setup

Fig. 1. 3D experiment setup procedure.

the other side of the specimen was confined with plates and plumb
level was adopted for checking the leveling of the confinement, as
depicted in Fig. 1c. Four LVDTs were installed on the plates as
shown in Fig. 1d. A greased 0.05 mm thick Teflon sheets of three
layers on the top and bottom, and one layer at the sides of the spec-
imens were attached as the friction reduction pad. More details
about the reduction pad can be found in Mohammadi and Wu
[37]. A summary of the experimental procedure is described as
follows:
1. Placing the specimen between two thick and flat steel plates
on 1600 kN capacity MTS rock machine as shown in Fig. 1a.
Applying approximately 25% of the load-bearing capacity of
the unconfined concrete specimen to keep the specimen in
position.
2. Assembling side plates and the strain gauges mounted restrain-
ing bars. Each aluminum plate was designed and fabricated to
exert passive confinement from each side of the specimens
and the confinements were controlled by the aluminum bars
in the confinement system shown in Fig. 1b. When setting up,
the heavy plates were supported with steel fillers at the bottom
to keep it in position. Thereafter, the plates were supported by
tightening chains on top of the plates. The fillers were removed.
3. Tightening the restraining bars to apply significant pressure to
the sides of concrete cube.
4. Installing the four LVDTs to measure the axial deformation.
5. Re-applying approximately 20% of the load-bearing capacity of
the unconfined specimen and adjust the position of specimen so
that the variation of the four LVDT readings is less than 10%.
6. Initializing all channels of the data acquisition system.
 I.A. Tijani et al. / Construction and Building Materials 205 (2019) 61–72 65

Placement of the Apply 25% of load-bearing Coupling of

concrete cube between capacity of the unconfined the confining
two flat steel plates. strength to keep the cube in plates.
position.

Re-apply 20% of load-bearing Tightening the

Installation
capacity of unconfined strength restraining bars to apply
of LVDTs
and check the variation of the significant pressure to
readings the specimen.

Initialize all Specimen loading until Uncouple the

channels of the data failure and stop loading confining
acquisition system before yielding of plates
restraining bars

Fig. 2. Flow chart of experimental procedure.

7. Applying axial force to the specimen from the machine until the
end of the test. The axial force was applied at a rate of 0.01 mm/
s until the end of the test. Stop loading before yielding of the
restraining bars.
A summary of the experimental procedure is presented in Fig. 2.
3. Experimental results and discussion
3.1. Test results
The 3D stress of the confined and unconfined specimens and
their corresponding strains are listed in Tables 2 and 3 for cubes
under uniform and non-uniform lateral confinement, respectively.
The major failure of the specimens, as presented in Fig. 3, is the
longitudinal splitting. The failure mode of a concrete cube sub-
jected to FRP confinement is usually a shear sliding which may
not be obvious. However, the failure mode in this study is a longi-
tudinal cracking, which occurred at a location that is slightly away
from the diagonal of the specimen. This is because of non-
uniformity in the lateral confinement of the specimen.
Furthermore, the splitting crack is obvious on the axial loading
surface while the crack on the sides is small as compared to the
axial loading surface. This phenomenon occurred because of
restraint at the sides of the specimens. Similar failure mode has
been reported by Jiang et al. [36]. Furthermore, it can be deduced
that size does not affect the failure mode of the specimens irre-
spective of the number of ply.
The stress-strain relationships of the specimens under uniform
and non-uniform lateral confinement are depicted in Figs. 4 and 5,
respectively.
As shown in Figs. 4 and 5, the strength and strain are relatively
similar for both concretes of the same mixture made from different
sizes, and different mixtures from the same aggregate for both con-
finement. Meanwhile, it could be seen that the confinement effi-
ciency increases with increasing size. This simply indicates
increasing strength of specimen as the size increases. Additionally,
specimens with smaller size yield before the yielding of specimens
with larger size as presented in Fig. 6. This phenomenon is similar
as that reported by Li et al. [33] and Jiang et al. [5].
3.2. Proposed confining pressure for non-uniform confinement
According to some studies [10,34,41–44], the strengthening
ratio f cc =f co , confinement ratio f l =f co , confinement effectiveness
coefficient k1 and shape factors of noncircular specimens play sig-
nificant roles in the investigation of the effects of confinements on
performance of concrete subjected to uniaxial and multi-axial
compression tests. A pioneer model was proposed by Richart
et al. [45,46] for the aforementioned parameters
f cc =f co ¼ 1 þ k1 ðf l =f co Þ.
The confining pressure along in each direction is given as [37]
4ðEb eb Þ
fl ¼ Ab ð1Þ
Ac

(a) Top surface (b) Right Sides (c) Left Sides

Fig. 3. Failure mode of the specimens.
66 I.A. Tijani et al. / Construction and Building Materials 205 (2019) 61–72

(a) A-5mm group (b) A-10mm group

(c) A-20mm group (d) B-5mm group

(e) B-10mm group (f) B-20mm group

Fig. 4. Stress strain curves of uniform lateral confinement.

where Ab , Ac indicate the area of bar and concrete, while Eb , eb ec Lc

eb ¼ ð2Þ
are elastic modulus and axial strain of bar, respectively. For a Lb
rigid plate assembly, the strain relationship between confining
where Lb , Lc denote the length of bar and concrete, respectively.
bar and concrete is obtained from the displacement compatibility
Substituting Eq. (2) to Eq. (1) gives the confining pressure along
as [37] each direction as
 I.A. Tijani et al. / Construction and Building Materials 205 (2019) 61–72 67

(a) A-5mm group (b) A-10mm group

(c) A-20mm group

Fig. 5. Stress strain curves for non-uniform lateral confinement.

  
Ab Lc
f l ¼ 4Eb ec ð3Þ
Ac Lb
For FRP confined concrete, the confining rigidity El is given as
[5,47,48]
2Ef t f
El ¼ ð4Þ
b
where Ef , t f are elastic modulus and thickness of the FRP materials,
while b is the side length of a square column or diameter of a circu-
lar column.
For the current study the confining rigidity El is obtained by dif-
ferentiating Eq. (3) with respect to ec . This gives El along each
direction as
     
Abx Lc Abz Lc
El ¼ 4Ebx ; El ¼ 4Ebz ð5a; 5bÞ
Lbx Ac Lbz Ac
where Ebx , Ebz , Abx , Abz , and Lbx , Lbz are elastic modulus, area, and
length of the confining bar along the x and z directions, respec-
tively. Therefore, the effective confining rigidity for a non-
uniform passive confinement can be regarded as the averaged con-
fining rigidity as
Fig. 6. Comparison of same confinement with different sizes.     
2Lc Abx Abz
El ¼ Ebx þ Ebz ð5cÞ
Ac Lbx Lbz
68 I.A. Tijani et al. / Construction and Building Materials 205 (2019) 61–72
It is noted that the confining rigidity, Eq. (4), is applicable to FRP
confined concrete [5,47,48] while that in Eq. (5c) is the averaged
confining rigidity considering non-uniformity. By equating these
two equations, the equivalent FRP elastic modulus Ef and thickness
tf can be determined.
3.3. Influence of confining plate and size on elastic limit
(i) Transition stress f o
A typical transition stress f o presented in Fig. 7 is adopted in
this work. The value of f o is typically very close to the unconfined
concrete strength f co [5].
Kim et al. [6] proposed a model for actual concrete uniaxial
0
strength by considering the influence of size effect on concrete, f , as
0 1
0 0B B C
f ¼ f c @a þ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffiA ð6aÞ
1 þ ko dm hd  b
d pressive strength.Subsequently, Jiang et al. [5] replaced the f c in Eq.
a
where a ¼ 0:8, B ¼ 0:4, k0 ¼ 50, m ¼ 0:00055 and b ¼ 1 are dimen-
sionless parameters, d and h are the width and height of the speci-
0
men, da is the maximum aggregate size, f c is the compressive
0
strength of standard cylinder, f is the actual strength of concrete
considering size effect.
Jiang et al. [5] expressed Eq. (6a) to indicate that the actual con-
crete strength equals to the product of the standard cylinder
strength and size effect factor d, as
0 0
f ¼ f c dðd; h; da Þ
where d is a function of specimen size parameters d, h and aggre-
gate size parameter da as
B i
dðd; h; da Þ ¼ a þ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi ð6cÞ
1 þ ko dm hd  b
d
a
Based on the experimental data and numerical analysis, Jiang
et al. [5] highlighted that Eq. (6b) can be used to model f o for con-
crete considering size effect.
Meanwhile, existing studies [34,41,47–57] proposed models for
the transition stress, f o , without considering the size effects. How-
ever, the models [47,49–51] allowed the influence of confinement
on the transition stress. Some studies [34,35,58,59] used confining
pressure f l to model the stress-strain behavior of confined concrete
which encompasses the transition stress, while others
Fig. 7. Typical stress-strain curve.
[47,48,57,60] adopted confining rigidity El instead. Although the
confining rigidity El was proved to be more appropriate than the
ultimate confining pressure as a parameter for modeling the
stress-strain relationship of confined concrete [50,54,58,59], Cao
et al. [48] highlighted that either using f l or El is acceptable for
determining the stress-strain relationship of confined concrete.
Jiang et al. [5] evaluated models of Teng et al. [34,41,54,55], Ilki
et al. [56], Cao et al. [48], Fahmy and Wu [57], Samaan et al. [49],
Wu et al. [50], Xioa and Wu [51] and Cheng et al. [47] using details
of 179 experimental stress-strain curves of confined concrete
reported in Cao et al. [48] and concluded that the model proposed
by Cheng et al. [47] for f o has a better performance than the other
models in term of R2 value. The model proposed by Cheng et al.
[47] without considering the size effects for f o is
f o ¼ 9:03 þ 1:15f co þ 0:001El ð7Þ
where El is the confining rigidity and f co is the unconfined com-
0
(6b) with f o proposed by Cheng et al. [47] to examine the effect of
size on the transition stress, this is stated as
f o ¼ ð9:03 þ 1:15f co þ 0:001El Þdðd; h; da Þ ð8Þ
where dðd; h; da Þ is defined in Eq. (6c), El is given in Eq. (5c). For a
square specimen h=d ¼ 1, Eq. (8) reduces to
f o ¼ ða þ BÞð1:15f co þ 0:001El  9:03Þ ð9Þ
Two parameters, the average value ðAV Þ and integral absolute
ð6bÞ
error ðIAEÞ are
Pi Ti
1 Ei
AV ¼ ð10aÞ
Pi
1 jT i  Ei j
IAE ¼ Pi ð10bÞ
1 jE i j
where T i refers to analytical result, Ei refers to experiment and i
is the number of experimental data. These parameters are used to
evaluate the performance of the models and they are statistically
sensitive to derivations between the modeling and test data
[48,60–67]. The closer the value of AV to one, the more accurate
the model is, while the smaller the IAE value, the better the results
are.
Fig. 8. Comparison between predicted and experimental f o
 I.A. Tijani et al. / Construction and Building Materials 205 (2019) 61–72 69

The analytical result is compared with experiment in Fig. 8

where the performance of the proposed 3D model with respect
to f o is presented. It is observed in the figure that AV is relatively
close to 1.00 while IAE is also relatively small.

(ii) Transition strain eo

Transition strain, eo , is defined as the beginning of the plastic

strain region that occurs as illustrated in Fig. 7. The ratio of transi-
tion strain eo to the unconfined strain eco is regressed against the
strengthening ratio ðEl =f co Þ as presented in Fig. 9. The model takes
the effect of size and confining rigidity into consideration. The
model performance is evaluated by R2 which is a statistical quan-
tity that relates the proportion of the variance for a dependent
variable to an independent variable [68].
From Fig. 9, it can be deduced that R2 of the relationship is
approximately 70%. The relationship can be expressed as
eo ¼ 0:0125ðEl =f co Þeco þ 0:947eco ð11aÞ

3.4. Influence of confining plate and size on initial and hardening

modulus
(i) Initial modulus E1
An initial modulus E1 is defined as the initial tangential stiffness
of the stress-strain curve [51,67]. Cao et al. [48] and Wu and Jiang
[65] highlighted that the E1 is slightly greater than the elastic mod-
pffiffiffiffiffiffi
ulus of concrete, Eco . Eco is given as 4730 f co [48]. Meanwhile,
based on the assumption of modelling the initial path of the curve,
it is assumed that some degrees of confinement from the confining
system have effect on the path. Thereby, the relationship between
E1 =Eco and El =f co is regressed and shown in Fig. 10 with R2 approx-
imately 95%.
Therefore, from Fig. 10 E1 is given as
E1 ¼ ð0:019ðEl =f co Þ þ 1:069ÞEco
(ii) Hardening modulus E2
The hardening modulus E2 is defined as the gradient of the
asymptotic line of the stress-strain curve after the transition
region. In some existing stress-strain models, the confining pres-
sure f l was used in modeling the stress-strain behavior of confined
Fig. 10. Performance of E1 model (x and y in the figure refer to the horizontal and
vertical coordinate parameters).
concrete [34,35,58,59], while some studies adopted confining
rigidity El instead [5,47,48,57,60]. Meanwhile, Cao et al. [48] high-
lighted that either f l or E1 is acceptable in determining the ultimate
stress and strain of confined concrete.
It is evident that the confinement system significant affect the
linear part of the curve which begins after the transition region.
In this paper, to account for the effect of size and non-uniform pas-
sive confinement on the stress-strain model of the confined con-
crete, the confining rigidity El is used in modeling the behavior of
the confined concrete. The regression between E2 and the lateral
confinement stiffness ratio, q ¼ El =f co where El is defined in Eq.
ð12Þ (5c), is presented in Fig. 11 with R2 approximately 75%. The equa-
tion that best fits the data in Fig. 11 is given as
E2 ¼ 1346  57944q2 ð13Þ
which is valid for only the strain hardening type of stress-strain
curves. This equation is similar in form to the relation established
for uniform confinement which covers a wider range including
strain softening and hardening [69].

Fig. 9. The performance eo (x and y in the figure refer to the horizontal and vertical Fig. 11. Comparison between calculated and experimental values of E2 (x and y in
coordinate parameters). the figure refer to the horizontal and vertical coordinate parameters).
70 I.A. Tijani et al. / Construction and Building Materials 205 (2019) 61–72

Fig. 12. Performance of the proposed model

0
4. New stress-strain modeling for concrete under non-uniform f c ¼ E2 ðec  eo Þ þ f o ð15aÞ
confinement
where,
0
A new stress-strain model is proposed for confined concrete f o ¼ f o þ E2 eo ð15bÞ
with non-uniform confinement. Like typical uniformly confined
concrete [41,70], non-uniformly confined concrete has three differ- in which f o is the intercept of the linear function on the f c -axis as
ent phases encountered during the testing scheme. First, the para- shown in Fig. 7.
bolic first portion of the stress-strain response of the concrete
confined by plate is the same as the path of unconfined concrete. 4.2. Non-linear stress-strain relation
Thereby, the curve slope in this phase, otherwise known as the ini-
tial tangential stiffness, is taken as E1 . Cao et al. [48] and Wu and For the nonlinear stress-strain curve in Fig. 7 which lies within
Jiang [65] highlighted that E1 is greater than the elastic modulus 0 6 ec 6 eo , the polynomial model of Youssef et al. [70] and Hoshi-
of concrete, Eco . kuma et al. [71] is applied, as
Next, the initial stress-strain path meets the linear second path
f c ¼ C 1 þ C 2 ec þ C 3 enc ð16Þ
at a transition zone, at transition stress f o and transition strain eo
shown in Fig. 7. Lastly, the confining bars at this stage is fully acti- where C 1 ; C 2 ; C 3 and n are constants to be determined from the fol-
vated and the confining stress provided by the bars increase pro- lowing conditions
portionally to the applied load until the failure of specimens.
f c ¼ 0; df c =dec ¼ E1 at ec ¼ 0
Based on the aforementioned observation, the stress-strain curve 0 ð17Þ
in Fig. 7 will be adopted in modeling the process for non-uniform f c ¼ f o; df c =dec ¼ E2 at ec ¼ eo
confined concrete. The model is divided into two regions, Substituting the conditions into Eq. (16) yields
0 6 ec 6 eo and eo 6 ec 6 ecc . In the first region, the following  n
assumptions are made: (i) the initial path of the stress-strain curve ec
f c ¼ E1 ec þ ½f o þ eo ðE2  E1 Þ ð18Þ
is parabolic in nature and the slope is taken as the initial tangential eo
stiffness, E1 ; (ii) the parabolic initial path is affected by some
degrees of confinement from the confining system; (iii) the initial where n ¼ f oðþEð2EE 1 Þeo
2 E1 Þeo
.
path meets the linear second path. Meanwhile, for the second The performance of the proposed model in Eqs. (15a), (15b) and
region, (a) the linear second path ends at a point where both the (18) is further illustrated in Fig. 12 using the experiment data
concrete compressive strength and the maximum confining stress obtained in this paper. It is observed in Fig. 12(a) that AV is rela-
from the bar are reached; and (b) the experiment was immediately tively close to 1.00 while IAE is also relatively small. It can be
stopped before the yielding of confining bars. deduced from Fig. 12(b) that the experiment and predicted models
show very good agreement. Thereby, the proposed analytical
4.1. Linear stress-strain relation model can be regarded as a valid new, more generalized model
for a confined concrete that does not assumed equality of f o and
The linear portion of the stress-strain curve in Fig. 7, within the f co shown in Eq. (7) and Fig. 7, contrary to many other existing
region eo 6 ec 6 ecc , can be represented as works [34].

f c ¼ aec þ b ð14Þ
5. Conclusions
where a and b are constants. The slope of this linear function is
0
given by df c =dec ¼ a ¼ E2 . Substituting the condition f c ¼ f o at The current study examined the significant influence of aggre-
ec ¼ eo into Eq. (14) yields gate size on the mechanical behavior of passively confined con-
 I.A. Tijani et al. / Construction and Building Materials 205 (2019) 61–72
crete subjected to general 3D loading conditions. Based on this
study, the following conclusions can be drawn.
The relationship between the confinement effectiveness coeffi-
cient and aggregate size was reported for both uniform and non-
uniform confinement, and it could be concluded that the confine-
ment efficiency increases with increasing aggregate size. Based
on a conceptual design of confining plate, a new model was pro-
posed for the confining pressure and confining rigidity for speci-
men subjected to general 3D loading conditions. Furthermore, a
3D transition stress was proposed based on the existing uniaxial
transition stress models, which was validated with the current test
data. Aggregate size has a significant effect on the transition stress
of confined concrete. Moreover, the transition point of the stress-
strain curve is directly proportional to aggregate size. A new
stress-strain model for confined concrete was proposed. The pro-
posed new model has been proved to be an effective prediction
tool by comparing with experiment. The difference between the
ultimate value of experiment and the proposed stress-strain ana-
lytical model was within an acceptable range.
Acknowledgements
The work described in this paper was supported by General
Research Grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong
Special Administrative Region (Project Nos. CityU 11212017,
11216318).
Conflict of Interest
This is to declare that the paper submitted to Construction and
Building Materials contains no conflict of interest.
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