USE OF RECYCLED AGGREGATE CONCRETE IN

PRESTRESSED STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS

Marco Breccolotti, Annibale Luigi Materazzi
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Perugia Italy

Abstract
Recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) have been investigated since the late 70s and the beginning of
the 80s but their use as structural material only recently gained new attention. Several researches have
been carried out to investigate their use in conventional reinforced concrete (RC) but very few
researches dealt with prestressed concrete (PC) structures.
The structural use of RAC is nowadays allowed in many Countries but more stringent limitations exist
for its application in prestressing. In the present paper the shortcomings of RAC related to prestressing
are put in evidence and evaluated quantitatively by means of deterministic and reliability analysis.
Keywords: Recycled aggregate concrete, Prestressed beam, Prestress loss, Structural reliability.
1 Introduction
Many efforts have been done in recent years to assess the structural use of Recycled Aggregate
Concrete (RAC). At the University of Perugia has been active for some years a research program to
investigate the structural use of RAC, mainly focused on its structural reliability. Eccentrically loaded
sections (Breccolotti & Materazzi, 2010) and bonding between RAC and deformed steel rebars
(Breccolotti & Materazzi, 2012) have been already investigated by the Authors.
To better evaluate the consequences of the use of RAC in PC structures, several deterministic and
reliability analyses on prestressed beams are described in the present paper and their results are
critically reported.
2 Mechanical properties of RAC related to prestressing
The use of RAC in the prestressed concrete (PC) industry hasnt been deeply investigated so far even
if some experimental tests have already been conducted (Bassan, et al., 2006).
Generally, the mechanical properties of RAC involved in the load bearing capacity of PC elements,
such as elastic modulus, creep, shrinkage etc., are worse than that of normal aggregate concrete (NAC)
as demonstrated by several experimental works (Ajdukiewicz & Kliszczewicz, 2011). Worse results
are generally obtained when using coarse and fine recycled aggregates if compared to those obtained
with only coarse aggregates. We will consider the use of coarse RA only.
3 Randomness of mechanical properties of RAC
Several studies observed that the randomness of the concrete mechanical properties of RAC is higher
than that in NAC. Xiao et al. (2005) analysed the statistic properties of the compressive strength of
normal and recycled concretes designed to have the same characteristic strength. They found that the
CoV of the compressive strength varied from 8.27% for NAC to 9.70% for 50% RAC. Greater
differences have been found by Etxeberria et al. (2007). According to their study the CoV of concrete
strength increased from 8.8% for conventional concrete to 16.7% for 100% recycled aggregates
concrete. An increase in the CoV of the elastic modulus, from 0.71% for NAC to 1.59% for 100%
recycled aggregates has been also recorded (Domingo, et al., 2010).


While no statistical data on creep and shrinkage of RAC have been found in the literature, the
effect of creep and shrinkage uncertainty in NAC has been already investigated since the pioneer work
of Madsen and Bazant (1983). According to the Authors the random variability of creep and shrinkage
effects in concretes structures is often very large and should be accounted for in the design.
In the present study, according to the provision of the fib MC 2010 for NAC, a coefficient of
variation CoV
c
= 0.20 has been estimated for the creep function and a coefficient of variation CoV
s
=
0.35 has been used for the shrinkage.
4 Structural reliability of prestressed beams at SLS and ULS
As well known, the design of a prestressed beam require the control of the stresses at serviceability
limit state (SLS) and of the flexural bearing capacity at ultimate limit state (ULS). Such controls have
been carried out in the present work taking into account the random nature of some parameters
involved in the problem.
4.1 Level II analysis of reliability
Reliability analyses have been carried out at Level II for the determination of the probability of failure
by means of the calculation of the b index. The prestressing force at infinite time
inf
P is equal to:
( )
=
p p,
A
inf p, i p,c+s+r
P
0
(1)
with random variables written with bold characters and being
p,i
the prestress loss due to the
elastic shortening and
p,c+s+r
the prestress loss due to creep, shrinkage and steel relaxation (EC 2):

( )
( )
p
c ,Qp p pr
p p
c
cp
c c
E
E ,
E A
A
z ,
A I
+ +
=

+ + +



0 cs
cm
p,c+s+r
0
cm
t,t
E

t,t
E
2
0 8
1 1 1 0 8
(2)
Six different random variables, f
c
, f
p,1
, M
G
, M
Q
,
cs
and
cc
are, thus, involved in the problem.
4.2 Serviceability limit state
At SLS the durability and safety of prestressed beams can be reduced if the concrete undergoes tension
stresses that can be responsible for concrete cracking. According to the EN 1992-1-1, for exposure
class XC2 and higher, the decompression of concrete has to be checked for the quasi-permanent
condition. The limit state equation for the decompression of the bottom fiber can be written as:
( )
c c c
e h h
A J J

+ + =



inf G Q
P M M
1
0
2 2
(3)
4.3 Ultimate limit state
At ULS the effect of prestressing and prestress loss generally do not affect the flexural load bearing
capacity of PC beams. In fact, assuming yielded prestressing steel at failure, the design equation and
the limit state equation for the flexural bearing are, respectively:
( )
p p , d
p p , d G G Q Q
S cd
A f
A f d . M M
. b f

+



1
1
0 416 0
0 81
(4)
( )
p
p
A
A d .
. b

+ =



p,1
p,1c G Q
c
f
f M M
f
0 416 0
0 81
(5)


5 Application to a case study
The influence of the mechanical and statistical parameters of RAC with recycled coarse aggregate
coming from the from the precast industries discards (calcareous aggregates) on the structural
reliability of prestressed structural elements has been investigated through theoretical analysis on a test
beam, with 10 m length, cross section 600 x 800 mm and effective depth 700 mm.
The beam and the prestressing steel are designed according to the MC 2010 and EN 1992-1-1.
Deterministic and reliability analysis have been carried out to evaluate the prestressing steel
necessary to:
avoid the decompression of the beam bottom fiber in the mid span section at SLS;
avoid the flexural collapse in the mid span section at ULS.
The reliability analyses have been carried out seeking a prestressing steel area necessary to obtain
with RAC the same probability of failure calculated for the conventional concrete.
5.1 Material properties
The properties of the materials used in the analysis are shown in the Table 1. It has been assumed that
the characteristic compressive strength for every concrete is equal to 45 MPa while higher CoV have
been assumed for greater percentage of coarse aggregate replacement.
The multiplier coefficients of shrinkage and specific creep used in the analysis for RAC have been
taken by the work of Doming et al. (2010).
The elastic modulus of NAC has been evaluated according to EN 1992-1-1 while the elastic
modulus of RAC has been determined through the formula proposed by Corinaldesi (2010), similar to
that of EN 1992-1-1 where the coefficient 22000 have been replaced by 18800.
5.2 Loads
Permanent actions G, including selfweight and other permanent loads, and variable actions Q with the
values and the random properties shown in the Table 1 have been considered in the analysis.
5.3 Results of the analysis
Equations (1) and (3), together with the characteristic values of mechanical properties and applied
loads, have been used to calculate the amount of prestressing steel with initial tension
p ,

0
necessary
to prevent at SLS the decompression of the bottom fibre in the deterministic (A
p,det
) analysis. In the
reliability analysis at SLS, the same equations (1) and (3) have been used together with the statistical
distributions of the random variables. The area of prestressing steel A
p,rel
needed when using RAC, has
been determined seeking for a b index equal to that obtained for NAC beam. It has been found equal
to 2.043. The results of the calculations for both, deterministic and reliability analysis, are summed up
in the Table 2. At ULS a similar procedure has been applied to the equations (4) and (5). In this case
no difference can be found in the results of the deterministic analysis while very small differences
have been obtained by looking for an equal index b = 7.647 in the reliability analysis (see Table 3).

Table 1
Properties of random variables
Variable Distribution Mean CoV Car. Value
f
c,NAC
Normal 53.0 MPa 0.092 45.0 MPa
f
c,RAC20
Normal 53.8 MPa 0.100 45.0 MPa
f
c,RAC50
Normal 54.9 MPa 0.110 45.0 MPa
f
c,RAC100
Normal 56.0 MPa 0.120 45.0 MPa
f
p,1
Normal 1939.5 MPa 0.025 1860 MPa
i
s
Normal -- 0.35 --
i
c
Normal -- 0.20 --
M
G
Normal 658.9 kNm 0.2 875 kNm
M
Q
Normal 251.3 kNm 0.3 375 kNm


Table 2
Prestressing steel necessary to prevent the decompression at SLS
Deterministic Probabilistic
Concrete A
p,det
(mm
2
) A
p,prob
(mm
2
)
NAC

1897.7 1897.7
RAC20 1922.8 1905.8
RAC50 1928.8 1908.8
RAC100 1943.4 1922.4

Table 3
Prestressing steel necessary to prevent flexural collapse at ULS
Deterministic Probabilistic
Concrete A
p,det
(mm
2
) A
p,prob
(mm
2
)
NAC

1735.0 1735.0
RAC20 1735.0 1734.5
RAC50 1735.0 1734.5
RAC100 1735.0 1735.8

The negligible influence of the statistical distribution of the RAC compressive strength in the
flexural collapse of the PC beam indicates that the randomness of f
c
is adequately taken into account
by using its characteristic value and the coefficient of safety g
c
.
6 Conclusions
In the present paper the results of deterministic and reliability analyses on the use of RAC in
prestressed beams are addressed.
The results indicate that RAC with low percentage of replacement can be used in prestressed
element without compromising the structural performance of the element. Concretes with higher
amount of recycled aggregates can also be employed by slightly increasing the prestressing force.
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