Reinforced

Cement
Concrete -
Introduction
RCC DESIGN

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Reinforced Cement Concrete

- Introduction

Zone 1 Zone 2 Zone 3 Zone 4

Coarse Sand Medium Sand Fine Sand Very Fine Sand

Standard (Ennore, Tamil
Nadu)

 Coarse Aggregate: Hard Blast Granite Chips

 For highly reinforced members:

 Aggregate provides 80% of the total volume to the concrete and hence are high-
ly influential to its properties. It is hence sensible to use them in large amount as
they are less expensive and easily available.

 Fine Aggregate provides workability and uniformity to the mix. They hold
the coarse aggregate in suspension providing it plasticity and prevents possible
segregation of cement and coarse aggregate.

 Cement: Modern form of cement was first invented by Joseph Asphadin.

Grades of cement available:

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Specific Surface Area

Grade 33

Grade 43 Generally Available

Grade 53

 More specific surface area (SSA) implies that the cement is finer and hence more
water absorption capacity which results in more shrinkage and hence more heat of
hydration.

 Concrete: As per IS 456:2000:

Ordinary Concrete Standard Concrete High Strength Concrete

 Here, means that the characteristic strength of concrete is x MPa.

 In IS 456:2000, M60 was categorised as high strength concrete but after the
amendments carried out to the code in 2013, it is now categorized as standard
concrete.

Characteristic Strength
 When concrete mix of cement, fine aggregate and coarse aggregate casted
in size of 15cm*15cm*15cm cube and tested for compressive strength under
UTM after 28 days of standard curing then Characteristic Strength is the
strength below which not more than 5% test samples are expected to fall.

 Idealised test curve for concrete testing (The curve is approximately normal (or
Gaussian) for large number of test specimens):

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Here, Characteristic Strength

Mean Strength of Concrete

Standard Deviation

Here, Compressive Strength of individual concrete cubes.

Mean compressive strength of the cubes

Number of test cubes

 Assumed standard deviation for various grades of concrete as per IS 456

Grade of Concrete Standard Deviation

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 Mean Strength (fm): With the same condition as described earlier for characteristic
strength Mean Strength is defined as the strength below which not more than 50%
of the test results fall.

 Nominal Mix Concrete: These are the concrete mixes whose material
proportions are predefined and these grades of concretes aren’t required to be
designed.

Volumetric Proportion
Concrete Grade

Piling

 Minimum grade of concrete recommended for structural purposes by IS 456 is

M20.

 Design Mix Concrete: For this type of concrete mixes, proportions are not
fixed and hence are required to be designed as per the requirement. Generally,
all the concrete of grade greater than or equal to M25 are design mix concretes.

 Routine Quality Check, strength of three non-overlapping consecutive test re-

sults is considered such that their strength S will be:

In context of test:

I. Average strength of three test cubes is considered.

II. Individual variation in strength of the cubes should not be more than
of the average otherwise the test is considered to be invalid.

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Characteristic Load
 It is the load experienced by the structure which is having 95% probability of not
being exceeded during entire life time of the structure.

 Confidence Limit: It is defined as the range of probability function within

which data has maximum probability to fall. Superposed graph of characteristic
strength and characteristic load:

 In case of concrete structure as per the provisions of the code, confidence limit is
given as:

And/or

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Young’s Modulus for Concrete

 As per IS 456:200:

In previous codes, this value was as follows:

This value of Young’s Modulus will further be used in calculating deflection occur-
ring in the structure as:

 Stress-Strain curve for Concrete:

 Stress-Strain curve for concrete in compression side is almost linear up to

 In linear region of compression side of the curve:

 In non-linear region of compression side of stress-strain curve:

 Tensile strength of concrete is very low as shown in the figure below:

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 EIT = EC = Initial Tangent Modulus of Elasticity: It is short term static or dy-

namic modulus of elasticity for concrete. It is the slope of stress-strain curve at the
origin. The formula given by IS 456 calculates this value only.

 Application of this modulus of elasticity is in case of cyclic loading, dynamic loads

(EL, WL) whereas long term effects are neglected.

 ET = Tangent Modulus of Elasticity: Slope of tangent of stress and strain

curve at any point is given by this elastic constant.

 ES = Secant Modulus of Elasticity: It is the slope of line joining any point on

the curve to the origin. For design purposes this elastic constant should be used
whereas in practice, Initial Tangent Modulus is used.

 Concrete is neither elastic, nor if follows Hooke’s law but it is assumed that it
shows linear behaviour till a value of stress .

 Effect of Creep: Elastic Modulus of Creep: ECE

Here, Stress applied

Elastic Strain in concrete

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Creep Strain in concrete

Creep Coefficient

Age of loading 7 Days 28 Days 1 Year

Creep Coefficient

 Creep is a time dependent component of total strain apart from shrinkage and
temperature. The rate of increase of creep increases asymptotically.

Here, are age of concrete at the time of loading such that

Further, when the creep strain is considered with shrinkage of concrete the behaves
as shown:

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Tensile Strength of Concrete

 Flexural Tensile Strength of Concrete: It is analysed by using two-point
loading test:

 Direct Tensile Strength of Concrete: It is analysed by using split cylinder

test which is although not recommended by the code but gives the closest results
for the direct tensile strength of concrete. Direct tensile strength of concrete is
almost 8% to 10% to compressive strength of it.

 The ratio of compressive strength to tensile strength increases with time. It is be-
cause the rate of increase of compressive strength in concrete is higher than that
of its rate of gain of tensile strength.

Permissible Stresses
Direct Flexural
Grade of Direct Tensile Stress (N/ Flexural Tensile Compressive Compressive
Concrete mm2) Stress (N/mm2) Strength (N/ Strength (N/
mm2) mm2)

M15

M20

M25

M30

M35

M40

 Direct permissible stresses will have lower value than that of flexural stresses
because in direct loading, all fibres yield simultaneously whereas this doesn’t
happen in case of flexural loading.

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Durability Requirement
 Concrete Cover: In earlier codes, clear cover was used which was then re-
vised in IS 456:2000 to define effective and nominal cover as shown in figure:

 Recommendation by code for minimum grade of concrete and minimum nominal

cover required for various exposure conditions:

Minimum Grade of Minimum Nominal

Exposure Condition
Concrete recommended cover recommended

Mild Exposure: Protected against rain.

Moderate Exposure: Exposed to rain,

protected against severe rain.

Severe Exposure: Exposed to severe

rain, exposed to coastal environment and
alternate dry and wet climate.

Very Sever Exposure: Exposed to sea

and underground water.

Extreme Exposure: Exposed to tidal

waves or chemicals.

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 Recommendation by code for nominal cover on the basis of type of structure:

Slab Beam Column Footing

 Recommendation by code for minimum grade of concrete for different types of

construction:

Type of Construction Minimum grade of concrete recommended

RCC (General Construction)

Water Tank

Plain Cement Concrete in Sea Water

RCC in Sea Water

Post-tensioned, Pre-stressed Concrete

Pre-tensioned, Pre-stressed Concrete

Admixtures

 These are chemical compounds which are used to alter certain properties of fresh
or hardened concrete without altering its ultimate strength.

Water

 Water used to prepare cement concrete should be almost drinking level pure with
pH value not less than 6. Further maximum permissible limits of various impurities
in the water are given below:

Impurities Maximum Permissible Limit

Organic Solids

Sulphates

Chlorides

Suspended Solids

Inorganic Solids

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 Average compressive strength of three test cubes prepared with proposed water
shouldn’t be less than 90% of the average compressive strength of 3 test cubes
prepared from distilled water.

Reinforcement
Types of reinforcement steel bars used for RCC construction:

 Mild Steel (Fe250): these are further classified in two types:

 Ordinary Mild Steel

 Hot rolled Mild Steel

 Medium Tensile Steel

 High Yield strength Deformed bars (HYSD) or Cold Twisted Bars

(CTD)

 Thermo-Mechanically treated (TMT) bars:

 Fe415

 Fe500

 Fe550

 Fe600

 Mild Steel: These bars undergo large deformation before failure and hence
these aren’t used now a days. Mild steel has two yield points; namely upper
yield point and lower yield point but the lower yield point is considered to be the
actual yield point as it is independent of the cross-section of the bar and the rate
of loading. Yield Plateau of Mild Steel can be avoided by cold working.

 Cold Working: It is the process in which reinforcement bars are stressed

beyond yield plateau by stretching or twisting followed by unloading. Behaviour
of cold twisted bars when compared to Mild Steel is shown with the help of a
graph:

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Reinforcement type Mild Steel TOR40 TOR50

Steel Grade Fe250 Fe415 Fe500

Ultimate Tensile Strength 410 MPa 485 MPa 545 MPA

 TMT Bars: These bars are made using metallurgical process in such a way
that they are simultaneously hard, ductile and anti-corrosive. TMT bars have
three distinct layers which can be seen by dipping a freshly cut bars section into
NITAL solution (HNO3 + CH3OH). The three layers in the bar are as follows:

1. Core Layer: Innermost ductile layer. Made of Perlite and Ferrite. On

moving outward, at the transition layer there is Bainite.

2. High Strength Layer: It is the middle layer and is made of Martensite

and Bainite.

3. Outer Layer: This is an anti-corrosive layer on the outermost part of the

bar and is made of Martensite.

By using metallurgical methods in manufacturing of these bars allow them to stay

free from surface defects which is not the case in HYSD bars. Surface defects on
bars makes them prone to corrosion and hence TMT bars have better corrosion re-
sistance.

 Strain in different types of bars at the time of yielding:

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 For Fe250 bars:

 For Fe415 bars:

 For Fe500 bars:

Permissible Stresses in Steel Reinforcement as per IS 456:200:

Permissible Stress (N/mm2)

Type of Stress in Steel Reinforcement
Mild Steel: Fe250 HYSD bar: Fe415

Bar diameter

Tension
Bar diameter

Compression in column bars

Compression in flexure member when re-

sistance of concrete isn’t taken in to account

Bar diameter
Compression in flexure
member when resistance
of concrete isn’t taken in to
account Bar diameter

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 Bauschinger Effect: The Bauschinger effect refers to the property of the material
where the material’s stress-strain behaviour changes as a result of the microscopic
stress distribution of the material.

Stress-strain behaviour of steel in compression is identical to that in tension however if

steel is stressed in to the inelastic zone in uniform tension, unloaded and then
subjected to stress reversal i.e., compression, it is found that stress-strain curve in
compression becomes non-linear at a stress much lower than initial yield stress.

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