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Calibration of Pull-Out tests on Historical-like Concrete

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Abstract

The compressive strength of concrete in existing r.c. structures may be estimated by means of Non-Destructive and Moderately Destructive techniques. While a large bibliography is available for “modern concrete”, for historical concrete, produced in the pre-code period till the ‘20 s, the task is more complex due to lack of standardization, improper rules of thumbs for proportioning of aggregates and to a substantial lack of data. Also the applicability of the procedures calibrated on modern concrete to historical concrete is an issue that is hardly addressed. In this paper, an experimental campaign on historical-like concrete makes use of pull-out tests to estimate the compressive strength. The effect of round aggregates, that are typical of historical concrete, of the casting direction and of the position of the tests (near the surface or inside the specimen) are discussed showing that standard procedures commonly used on modern concrete can be used on historical concrete only if specific calibration is performed. Besides, near-the-surface and inner tests are compared to the standard cube strength, showing the reliability of the pull-out procedure also for this kind of concretes.

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Acknowledgments

The authors greatly acknowledge the contribution of the technical staff of the Building Materials Laboratory of the University of Genoa, among which Davide Burlando, Giancarlo Cassini, Giuseppe Riotto, Sonia Russo and Giuseppe Tarantino.

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This research was performed by means of personal resources of the authors with no public or private funding.

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  1. DICCA - Department of Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Genoa, via Montallegro 1, 16145, Genoa, Italy

    A. Brencich, F. Hasweh & D. Pera

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  1. A. Brencich
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  2. F. Hasweh
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Correspondence to A. Brencich.

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Brencich, A., Hasweh, F. & Pera, D. Calibration of Pull-Out tests on Historical-like Concrete. Mater Struct 54, 72 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-021-01645-6

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