Professional Documents
Culture Documents
http://cipremier.com/100030048
www.scinst.org.sg
You are not Allowed to re‐distribute or re‐sale the article in any format without written approval of
CI‐Premier PTE LTD
www.cipremier.com
1. Introduction
Mix design is a process of specifying the mixture of ingredients required to meet anticipated
properties of fresh and hardened concrete. Concrete mix design is a well established practice around the
world. All developed countries, as well as many developing countries, have standardized their concrete
mix design methods. These methods are mostly based on empirical relations, charts, graphs, and tables
developed as outcomes of extensive experiments and investigations of locally available materials. All of
those standards and methods follow the same basic trial and error principles.
Some of the prevalent concrete mix design methods are: a) ACI Mix Design Method, b) USBR Mix
design practice, c) British Mix design Method, and d) ISI Recommended guidelines. The scope of this
study is to compare ACI and ISI recommended mix design guidelines. A major part of concrete used in
rural and semi-urban areas in India falls in the range of 15 - 20 MPa [1]. Similarly, concrete of strengths
up to 40 MPa are widely used in USA. Therefore, similar ranges of concrete strengths are widely
applicable in both India and USA. The scope of this paper is limited to absolute volume and concrete mix
design for compressive strengths less than 6000 psi (~ 40 MPa). In order to compare the two methods,
calculation processes are briefly summarized, flow charts are made to illustrate the design steps, and
sample tests are performed with the two techniques to produce 20, 30, and 40 MPa concrete. Basic data
used in both methods is illustrated in Table 1.
Table 1: Basic data used in the ISI and ACI Mix Design Methods
where,
f ck = characteristic compressive strength at 28 days,
s = standard deviation of compressive strength,
t = a statistic, depending upon the accepted proportion of low results and the number of tests.
2. The water cement (w/c) ratio is chosen from an empirical relationship (a graph) for the given 28-day
target mean strength. The w/c ratio is checked against the limiting w/c ratio to satisfy the durability
requirements.
3. Air content, amount of entrapped air in fresh concrete, as percentage of volume of concrete, is
estimated based on the nominal maximum size of aggregate (NMSA).
2
Standard Design Satisf- Type of
Deviation strength actory aggregate
NMSA
Target Air C
strength content
A
A
Check w/c is
satisfactory W/C Water Sand
ratio content content
Sand
grading
B C B zone
Comp-
acting
factor Water Sand
adjust adjust
3
4. Initially, water content, as mass (kg) per unit volume (m3) of concrete, is selected based on the NMSA
and the target strength. Then, the initially determined water content is adjusted for workability
conditions depending upon the compacting factor and types of aggregates.
5. Sand content, as percentage of total aggregate volume, is selected based on the NMSA and the
target strength. Then, the initially determined sand content is adjusted for workability conditions
depending on the sand grading zone, w/c ratio, and type of aggregates.
6. The cement content is calculated from the w/c ratio and the water content. The cement content, thus
calculated, is then checked against the minimum cement content to satisfy the durability requirement.
7. With the quantities of water and cement per unit volume of concrete and the percentage of sand in
the total aggregate already determined, the coarse and fine aggregate contents per unit volume of
C
concrete are calculated from the following equations, respectively:
C a 1000V W S ca (1 p ) ……………………………………………….……………………...(2)
Sc
C
f a 1000V W pS fa ………………………………………………………………...(3)
Sc
where,
Ca = total mass of coarse aggregate, [kg per m3 of concrete],
f a = total mass of fine aggregate, [kg per m3 of concrete],
V = absolute volume of fresh concrete, equal to gross volume minus the volume of entrapped air,
W = mass of water (kg) per m3 of concrete,
C = mass of cement (kg) per m3 of concrete,
S c = specific gravity of cement,
p = ratio of fine aggregate to total aggregate by absolute volume,
S fa = specific gravities of saturated surface dry fine aggregate,
Sca = specific gravities of saturated surface dry coarse aggregate.
8. Finally, water content is adjusted based on the absorption and the current moisture content to
generate equivalent of saturated surface dry condition of the aggregates.
3. ACI Method:
In 1991, the American Concrete Institute (ACI) published its guidelines for normal, heavyweight and
mass concrete mix design [4]. The Absolute Volume Method of mix design as described by the ACI
Method [5] is revisited, and the design steps for mix proportioning as recommended by ACI Committee
1. The required (target) average compressive strength ( f cr ) at 28 days for mix design is determined by
211, is presented in the form of a schematic flow chart, Figure 2. The steps are discussed below:
4
Standard Design Air entrai- Types of Type of Satisf- Fineness
Deviation strength nment aggregate constr- actory modulus
uction NMSA & DRUW
Exposure
condition
Absorpt-
ion and
Check minimum moisture
cement content Cement
Content
Volume of all
Sp.gravity items
of agg &
cement
Volume Moisture
Batch Volume
of sand Content
Adjustment
5
8. Once the water content, cement content, air content, and the coarse aggregate content per unit
volume of the concrete is determined, the fine aggregate (Fagg) is calculated by subtracting the
absolute volume of the known ingredients from unit volume of the fresh concrete (in this case 1 m3)
where,
Y = sum of all other ingredients (air, water, cement and coarse aggregates) in cubic meter calculated
for 1 m3 of concrete.
9. Finally, water content is adjusted based on the absorption and the current moisture content of the
coarse and fine aggregates, in account of saturated surface dry condition of the aggregates.
6
Table 2: Design mix calculated for 1 m3 of fresh concrete
The calculations indicate that although the design strength (characteristic strength) is the same, the
proportion of the ingredients for ISI and ACI mixes are different. Although, the water content results are
quite close, the w/c ratios are different, and therefore, the cement content is different between the ISI and
ACI results. The calculations show that ISI uses higher cement content than ACI, although both methods
tend to increase the cement quantity as the desired strength increases. The high cement content of the
ISI method may be owing to the relatively low quality of Indian cement in earlier decades when the codes
were produced. Another reason for the high content may be the fineness of Indian cement, 225 m2/kg,
compared to American cement, 300-500 m2/kg [6, 7].
Both methods indicate that fine aggregate content tends to decrease as the desired strength
increases. The coarse aggregate content does not seem to change in the case of the ACI method,
whereas this tendency is not stable in the case of the ISI method. The w/c ratio is higher in the ACI mix
than ISI.
Concrete cylinders of 4” and 8” height size were prepared and tested according to ASTM standards
7. Experimental Results
for 7 days and 14 days. Three samples were cast in each case. The tests were done using local
materials in Hawaii, such as Hawaiian cement (Type I-II), Halawa aggregates (3/4”), and # 4 Halawa sand
(fineness modulus 2.93). During the sample preparation it was observed that the workability was
consistently higher in the ACI method. The strength results are presented in Table 3.
Basic statistical analysis, such as deviation measurement and correlation analysis were undertaken
for 28-day compressive strength results. A summary of the analysis is presented in Table 4.
7
Table 4: Analysis of 28-day compressive strength
9. Conclusions
Based on the analysis of the pilot tests, the following conclusions can be drawn:
1. The ISI technique performs better for lower strengths than higher strengths.
2. Whereas, the ISI technique meets the strength criteria for 20 MPa, the actual strength achieved is
almost double. This appears to indicate a waste of materials, since such a high strength is not
required. It may be that the high strength obtained is specified to offset hand mix conditions in rural
and remote India.
3. The correlation between desired strength and actual strength is r = 0.94 for ACI and r = - 0.48 for ISI.
This indicates a higher correlation between designed and actual strength for ACI, indicating not only
that it is a more consistent and reliable technique, but that the ISI technique may give the inverse of
what is desired.
4. The ACI method is more likely to meet 30 MPa and 40 MPa design strengths.
5. Higher strength fluctuations for ISI are evidenced by fluctuations ranging from -1.36 MPa to 22.42
MPa compared to ACI ranging from 6.21 MPa to 11.44 MPa. This indicates that the ACI technique is
more reliable.
6. The fines content in ACI is higher, which makes for higher workability. Presumably, It also
contributes to increased strength as the voids are filled, especially as observed in the 30 and 40 MPa
test cases. In the case of ISI, fine aggregate content is reduced as the design strength requirement
goes up. Therefore, voids are likely to be higher for higher strengths, thus leading to decreased
strength in such cases.
7. The cement content for higher strengths in ISI increases at the expense of fine aggregates, making
for an overall lower fines to coarse ratio, which possibly affects the strength achievement.
The conclusions are based only on a limited number of trial batches. Results may vary for larger number
of samples and with the use of different quality of cement, sand and coarse aggregates.
10. Acknowledgements:
The authors thank Mr. Timothy S. Folks, Manager of Technical Services, Hawaiian Cement /
Hawaiian Laboratories, for use of their concrete lab facility.
11. References:
1. Kumar, P. and Kaushik S. K., 2003, Some trends in the use of concrete: Indian scenario, The Indian
Concrete Journal, December 2003, pp.1503-1508.
2. Indian Standard, Recommended guidelines for concrete mix design, IS 10262-1982, 1983, Indian
Standard Institution, New Delhi, India.
3. Handbook on concrete mixes (based on Indian Standards), 1983 (SP: 23-1982), Bureau of Indian
Standards, New Delhi, India
4. ACI Committee 211, 1991 (re-approved in 2002), Standard practice for selecting proportions for
normal, heavyweight and mass concrete. American Concrete Institute, USA.
5. Kosmatka S. H., Kerkhoff B. and Panarese W. C., 2002, Design and control of concrete mixtures,
Portland Cement Association, Skokie, Illinois, USA.
6. Indian Standard, Ordinary Portland cement, 33 grade- specification, IS 269:1989, 1990 (third print
2000), Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi, India.
7. Portland Cement, U. S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration,
www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/materialsgrp/cement.html, accessed on July 5, 2005.