Pullout testing of concrete

Cast-in-place device enables concrete to be evaluated in the structure with only minor damage
BY JOHN A. BICKLEY TROW LTD., CONSULTING ENGINEERS

esting of field-cured cylinders to determine whether concrete strength is satisfactory for either removal of forms or application of post-tensioning has been required by many codes and specifications. Howe ve r, it is difficult to be sure that field-cured cylinders have received the same protection or curing conditions that were provided for parts of the structure they are supposed to represent. Therefore the interest in in-place test methods, including pullout tests, has been growing. A pullout test measures the force required to pull a specially shaped steel rod or disc out of the hardened concrete into which it has been cast. Because of its shape, the steel rod is pulled out with a cone of concrete whose surface slope is approximately 45 degrees to the vertical. A hollow tension ram bearing on the concrete surface exerts the necessary pull on the steel rod, with power supplied by a hand-operated hydraulic pump. The force required for pullout is then related to the com-

Figure 2. Load is hydraulically applied by turning the handle of the testing machine. Note pulled out cone of concrete and cavities from which cones have been pulled.

Figure 1. Compact, lightweight pullout testing equipment is small enough to be carried in a briefcase and weighs about 10 pounds.

pressive strength of the concrete. The principal parts ram and pumpare commercially available, and peripheral parts such as the rods, washers and sleeves can be manufactured locally, or all of the components may be purchased as one proprietary system. Pullout testing is not a recent development. As early as 1938, the American Concrete Institute published a report of in-place concrete testing in the Soviet Union, pullout tests were prominent among them. It was not until the 1970s howe ve r, following work by Richards and Malhotra, that this approach to testing began to be regarded as a practical site method.

deck forms. After the concrete has hardened, the bolt holding the stem to the formwork is removed as is the plug in the formwork. A special wrench is then used to remove the stem from the pullout disc. At the time of the test a pull-bolt is threaded into the disc from the surface and attached by a coupling to the testing machine. The counterpressure ring of the testing machine is placed against the surface of the concrete and load is hydraulically applied by turning the handle of the testing machine. The machine incorporates a special valve so that within a wide range of speeds of turning the handle the load is applied at a uniform and constant rate. Figure 3. Removable shaft of the pullout device may be attached through a circular hardboard plate nailed to the form (left); by means of a screw which passes through the form (center); or with a flotation cup (right) which rests on the unformed concrete surface.

Test procedure
Load can be applied up to a required proof load and then released, in which case there is no failure of the concrete around the insert. Alternatively, load can be applied until failure just occurs, in which case little damage occurs to the surface of the concrete, and the cone of concrete fractured by the test does not come out of the mass of concrete. If this procedure is followed, all that shows on the surface of the concrete is a slightly raised ring, the size of the inside of the counterpressure ring. Finally, if required, loading can be continued past failure until the cone of concrete and the pullout insert are removed from the concrete. In this case, the small hole made by this procedure may subsequently have to be repaired. Each test takes approximately 2 minutes and it is recommended that about 10 inserts be used for each 100 cubic yards of concrete placed. Where very large pours are involved, the number of inserts per unit volume may be reduced, but the principal value of the system is in the use of relatively large numbers of tests to achieve high levels of confidence. After the tests are completed, the

Test equipment
One commercially available pullout test system developed in Denmark is shown in Figures 1 and 2. This portable equipment, contained entirely in a briefcase, weighs less than 10 pounds. The pullout insert is a 1inch-diameter hardened steel disc held 1 inch from the concrete surface by a removable shaft. This shaft can be attached to the form using a circular hardboard plate nailed into place or through the formwork using an adjustable 14-inch-diameter screw. It can also be placed in unformed surfaces of concrete using a flotation cup. The three systems are shown in Figure 3. Figure 4 shows how a bolt is installed for testing before form removal. The insert is first attached to a removable plug about 3 inches in diameter. This removable form plug can be reused and is particularly suitable for flying

The test bolt including disc and stem is mounted on the inside of the form prior to placing concrete.

Concrete is placed.

The form (or part of the form) and the stem of the test bolt are removed.

A pull bolt is screwed into the disc, and the instrument is mounted on the surface of the concrete.

By applying a force with the instrument a small piece of the concrete is dislodged.

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 calculated. The minimum pullout strength of the pour is then calculated by deducting the standard deviation times a constant (which varies with the number of tests made) from the mean strength of the results. This result gives the minimum strength in a pour to 95 percent confidence levels. Since all the tests are made on actual concrete in the structure, the strength calculated by this system is a statistically valid measurement of the strength of the element. A primary use of pullout testing is to determine the safe removal time for forms or the earliest time at which post-tensioning may take place, and it is essential that the results do not contain any error. A procedure has therefore been adopted whereby the results are phoned through to a central office where personnel have programmed calculators similar to those used by the technicians in the field. The results are recalculated and confirmed on the telephone to the technician who then knows that no arithmetical errors have been made. A standard form is used to present the results to the contractor or other authorized person on site. On this form are stated limits which have been agreed upon with the structural engineer for form removal or post-tensioning and all results are given, together with the mean strength, standard deviation, and calculated minimum strength. In addition, a three-dimensional reference is shown, relating the tests to the element of the structure on which they were conducted. This form is signed by the technician and given to the contractor who signs a copy which is retained by the testing authority. By this procedure, the possibility of an error is minimized and both parties have a written record of what has been agreed.

p re s s i ve strength by making groups of cylinders and testing them at various strength levels. Recently, in the light of the data obtained from many tests in No rt h America, it has been concluded that an accurate correlation can be obtained, provided a range of strengths above 3000 psi is included in the correlation tests and provided each point on the curve represents at least two tests. The manufacturer of the equipment described publishes a recommended straight-line relationship to use in relating pullout force to the compressive strength of standard cylinders. In North America a slightly different relationship has been found; the reason for this is not clear except that in Denmark cylinders are not capped before they are tested in compression. In recent tests comparing pullout tests and cores from uniform slabs of concrete it has been concluded that, while slightly higher, the variation of a pullout test is of the same order of magnitude as that of a standard cylinder. It has also been shown by calculation from these data that the effect of the testing variation of a pullout test has very little effect on the value for minimum strength of a pour of concrete calculated by the procedure described earlier. The pullout test can therefore be used to determine accurately and reliably the actual strength of concrete in a pour. In 1978, the American Society for Testing and Materials published a tentative standard on pullout testing, ASTM C 900-78T, Tentative Test Method for Pullout Strength of Hardened Concrete. This tentative standard is currently being revised and it is hoped that a full standard will be approved by ASTM in the very near future.

Pros and cons of pullout testing

There are now more than 30 testing devices of the type described being used in North America and to date something on the order of 20,000 tests have been carried out. Primary use for the system has been in either controlling formwork removal and time of post-tensioning, or determining the minimum amount of curing needed in cold weather conditions. The system has been used on cooling towers, chimneys, multistory building frames, pipelines, bridges and other forms of construction. Pullout testing lends itself to accelerated construction programs and if properly applied can be used in conjunction with selected concrete mixes to help build multistory frames more rapidly than normal. Because financing and other costs are currently very high, a reduction in construction time can result in significant financial benefits to the owner and other parties to a contract. With the system of pullout testing described, the inserts have to be preplaced in the forms before concreting. Many people feel that this is a disadvantage although in practice we do not find this to be so. On almost all sites, the inserts are placed by the contractors forces and less than 3 percent are lost due to faulty installation. More inserts than needed are placed in case

Correlating pullout test results with other test results

Because the standard measure of the strength of concrete in North America has for the last 75 years been determined using concrete cylinder compression tests, it is now necessary to relate the results of pullout tests to these standard tests. Correlation between pullout strength and compressive strength can be easily determined by making standard cylinders in which pullout inserts are cast. It has been the practice in Canada to cast sets of 10 cylinders, each containing a pullout insert in the bottom. The pullout test is first carried out and load is applied just to failure. The cylinder is then capped and tested in the normal manner. Prior to capping, the top of the cylinder containing the pullout insert is tapped carefully with a hammer to assure that the slightly dislodged cone of concrete is hammered back into its original position in the cylinder. Extensive comparison tests using groups of cylinders containing pullout inserts and those without inserts have shown that the presence of the insert makes no difference in the compressive strength test results obtained with the cylinder. It is therefore easy to obtain correlations between pullout strength and com-

initial tests show values lower than required. There is then an adequate number of inserts for testing later to satisfy statistical needs. Because the inserts are placed throughout the pour and in relatively large numbers, the writer believes that with normal supervision there is no practical way for a contractor to influence the test results. For those who still prefer to select test locations after the concrete has hardened, a new method of pullout 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 manner. The dimensions of the insert and its distance from the concrete surface are the same as for the standard pullout inserts shown in Figure 3.

While a major concern of the writer and other persons is safety, it is very difficult to persuade people to use a system on the basis of safety alone. Howe ve r, pullout testing does have the potential to become one of the prime systems used to determine safe removal times for formwork. It is possible that in the not too distant future this and other in-place test methods will be written into the applicable codes and will at least under some circumstances become a mandatory procedure.

PUBLICATION #C810577
Copyright 1981, The Aberdeen Group All rights reserved