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Technical Paper submitted to ACI Materials Journal:

STRENGTH MEASUREMENTS OF FIELD-PLACED PERVIOUS CONCRETE

Liv M. Haselbach (ACI Member), Charles E. PiercePPP

PPP

(ACI Member),Kevin S. Pulis,Felipe Montes, and Srinivas Valavala

Liv M. Haselbach, ACI Member, is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and

Environmental Engineering at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC. She

received her PhD from the University of Connecticut in 2000 and has research interests in

sustainable construction. She is a member of ACI Committee 522, Pervious Concrete.

Charles E. Pierce, Member ACI, is an associate professor in the Department of Civil and

Environmental Engineering at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC. He

received his PhD from Northwestern University in 1998 and has research interests on the

use of by-products in cement-based materials. He is a member and current secretary of

ACI Committee 229, Controlled Low-Strength Materials, and is a member of ACI

Committee 555, Concrete with Recycled Materials.

Kevin S. Pulis is a civil engineer at Freeland & Associates, Inc., a site development and

surveying firm in Greenville, SC. He received his BS in Civil and Environmental

Engineering from the University of South Carolina in December 2004.

Felipe Montes is a graduate research assistant in the Department of Civil and

Environmental Engineering at the University of South Carolina. He received his MS in

Biosystems Engineering from Clemson University.

Srinivas Valavala is a stormwater engineer with Richland County, South Carolina. He

received an MS from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the

University of South Carolina and a BTech in Civil Engineering from JNTU College of

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Engineering, Kakinada, India.

ABSTRACT

Pervious concrete is an alternative paving surface with potential environmental benefits

such as reduced stormwater runoff. There is a need for correlations between its

environmental characteristics such as porosity and load-bearing properties such as

strength so that designers can specify the product for multiple purposes. This paper

evaluates several mechanical properties of two representative field-placed pervious

concrete slabs, one produced with a low-porosity (P25%) mixture. Beams were sawcut from each slab and tested for

flexural strength. Block specimens were sawcut from each slab and then cored to measure

porosity and compressive strength as per ASTM C39 at different ages, with an apparent

acceptable level of statistical variation for the strength measurement. There is an apparent

correlation between an increase in porosity and a decrease in compressive strength for the

specimens. Significant variations of porosity and consequently strength were noted based

on location within a slab. It is recommended that multiple representative cores are tested

and future studies performed to correlate field placement techniques with spatial

variations of mechanical properties.

Keywords: pervious concrete; no-fines concrete; porous concrete; runoff; nonpoint

source pollution; porosity; compressive strength; flexural strength.