Wang et al.

/ J Zhejiang Univ-Sci A (Appl Phys & Eng) in press 1

Mix proportioning of normal concrete considering maximum
packing density and minimum cement content: a fuzzy approach

Jafar SOBHANI
1
, Ali Akbar Shirzadi JAVID
2
, Parviz GHODDOUSI
2

(
1
Department of Concrete Technology, Building and Housing Research Center, Tehran 13145-1696, Iran)
(
2
School of Civil Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Narmak, Tehran, Iran)

E-mail: Jafar Sobhani@yahoo.com; sobhani@bhrc.ac.ir

Received Feb. 13, 2012; Revision accepted May 8, 2012; Crosschecked

Abstract: Concrete mix proportioning could be referred to as the process of determining the quantities of concrete ingredients,
using local materials, to achieve the specific characteristics of the concrete. Among the most important parameters affecting the
performance of concrete are the packing density and corresponding grading curve of aggregates. Better packing of aggregates
improves the properties of concrete such as strength, durability, elastic modulus and creep. Also with the increase of packing
density, cement content could be reduced, which results in less damage to the environment. This paper presents the development
of a novel technique for mix proportioning of normal concrete considering higher packing density and lower cement content. The
proposed system utilizes four sub-fuzzy systems to quantify the concrete mixture properties including target compressive strength,
water to cement ratio, ideal grading curve and free water. The obtained results with proposed fuzzy systems were compared with
the concrete mix proportioned by field experts and were found to be remarkably close to each other. Also the proposed system has
less cement and higher packing density of aggregate compared with other mix proportioning methods.

Key words: Concrete mix proportioning, Packing density, Modeling, Fuzzy systems.
doi:10.1631/jzus.A1200040 Document code: A CLC number:


1 Introduction

Concrete as the most important material for a
construction process is usually made by a mixture of
fine aggregate, coarse aggregate, cement, water and
admixtures. This material could become hard both in
the air and water. Concrete is one of the most popular
building materials and engineering materials
considering inorganic nonmetallic materials, and is
popularly used in construction, water conservation ,
roads, petroleum, chemical engineering and military
engineering applications etc. Concrete mix design
could be defined as the process of selecting suitable
ingredients of concrete and determining their relative
proportions. This process is based on sound technical
principles and heuristics and the object of
proportioning is attaining required strength and
durability of concrete (ACI 211.1, 1997; Nataraja et
al., 2006; Akhras et al., 1994; Mohd et al. 2005)
Today, many researchers believe that planning
concrete mix design is an art and it extremely depends
on the expert who wants to provide the mix design. It
is important to stress that there are many
uncertainties in the concrete mix proportioning. Some
of these uncertainties are: compressive strength,
water to cement ratio, cement content, level of
workability, quality of work shop and durability of
concrete (Tesfamariam et al., 2007; Simon, 2003). In
this regard, suitable methods are needed in order to
handle the involved linguistic and probabilistic nature
of concrete mix proportioning. Fuzzy set theory was
inspired by Zadeh (Zadeh, 1967) in 1965 as a natural
way of dealing with the imprecision and uncertainty
that is often present in real-world applications (Ta-
nyildizi, 2009; Akkurt et al., 2003). Here,
Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE A (Applied Physics & Engineering)
ISSN 1673-565X (Print); ISSN 1862-1775 (Online)
www.zju.edu.cn/jzus; www.springerlink.com
E-mail: jzus@zju.edu.cn


Zhejiang University and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
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2
uncertainties do not mean random, probabilistic and
accidental variations, which are related to the
numerical data. Fuzzy set theory provides a regular
calculus and performs numerical computation by
using linguistic labels stimulated by membership
functions (Sardemir et al., 2009, Topcu et al., 2008).
Therefore, one of the best existing methods to realize
this goal is to apply the fuzzy logic. In 1974,
Mamdani (Mamdani, 1976), by exerting Zadehs
theories and fuzzy inference system, successfully
used the IF-THEN rules on the automatic operating
control of a steam generator (Tanyildizi, 2009, Oz-
could et al., 2009).
Today, the fuzzy logic is widely applied in
various sciences because of its high capability of
defining uncertain properties and its also being used
widely in civil engineering (Saltan et al., 2007; Anoop
et al., 2002; Sobhani and Ramezanianpour, 2011;
Anoop et al., 2007; Zhao and Chen, 2001; Sasmal et
al., 2006). In this paper, a fuzzy approach is presented
in order to proportion ingredients of concrete.
Recently, concrete technology experts have
tended to proportion concrete with high value of
aggregates packing density and, consequently, less
amounts of cement because of the worlds yearly
cement production of 1.6 billion tons accounts for
about 7% of the global loading of carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere (Ji, 2006; Wong and Kwan, 2006).
Also Portland cement is one of the most
energy-intensive materials of construction. Therefore
production cost and resource consideration will
require us to minimize Portland cement use while
meeting the future demands for more concrete. This
must be the top priority for a viable concrete industry
as a part of sustainable development (Mehta, 1999;
Mehta, 2001). Hence in this research, an ideal grading
curve based on fuzzy system is attained and then,
proper volumes of coarse and fine aggregates fully
compatible with this curve are determined. In this
way, the packing density of the aggregates could be
increased and the amount of cement could be
decreased. As a result, a type of concrete is produced,
which has a reduced environmental impact. (Mehta,
2001). This is one of the concrete proportioning
advantages that is proposed here. Description of
fuzzy inference model is given in section 2. Results
and discussions are presented in section 3.
Conclusions are presented in section 4.
2 Components of proposed fuzzy system

In this research, the needed parameters for con-
crete proportioning were stated as fuzzy sets in vari-
ous sub-fuzzy systems. Fig.1 shows a schematic of
fuzzy system interfaces to determine the concrete
ingredients. It could be seen that the proposed model
utilizes four sub-fuzzy systems as follows:
- Target compressive strength fuzzy sys-
tem (TCSFS), for quantifying the target
compressive strength of concrete.
- Water to cement ratio fuzzy system
(WCRFS), for determining the water to
cement ratio of concrete
- Ideal grading curve fuzzy system
(IGCFS), to quantify and draw the ideal
grading curve and then estimate the
volume of coarse and fine aggregate
- Free water fuzzy system (FWFS), for
estimating the free water of concrete
The choice of the membership functions is based
on the experiences gained, and their base values were
selected so that they were concentrated on more
sensitive regions (Ozcould et al., 2009).
Taking into account the experience of experts
that have the experience of concrete mix design for
several years, trapezoidal or triangular membership
function was used. All of the sub-fuzzy systems are of
Mamdani-type with And method: min, Or method:
max, Implication: min, Aggregation: max,
Defuzzification: Centroid. Matlab software and its
fuzzy logic toolbox are also utilized in order to
implement the inference system of fuzzy logic.

3. Proposed fuzzy systems
3.1. Target compressive strength sub-fuzzy system
(TCSFS)
TCSFS is defined to determine the target
compressive strength of concrete at the age of 28
days. The quality of produced concrete and the
workshops (S) and the given compressive strength (f
c
)
were the inputs of this sub-fuzzy system and its output
was f
cm
. Defined set for fuzzy label S is as follows:
S= {High Quality, Moderate Quality, Low
Quality}
(1)
Also fuzzy label fc, is defined as the following
set:
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f
c
= {16, 20, 23, 26, 30, 35, 38} (2)

where f
c
=16 represents needed an approximate spe-
cific compressive strength of 16 Mega Pascal at the
age of 28 days.
The output fuzzy label (f
cm
) is defined in fol-
lowing set:

f
cm
= { 21, 24, 27,30,33,36,39,42,45,48,51} (3)

18 rules were written for this fuzzy inference
system. All of these rules are discussed by consulta-
tion with specialists and experts who have experience
of 20 years in concrete mix design. For example one
of these rules was:

IF S is High quality AND f
c
is around 30 THEN f
cm
is around
37.

Membership functions for inputs and output
parameters used for TCSFS Fuzzy system are given in
Fig. 2.


Fig. 1. Schematic representation of fuzzy system for proportioning of concrete ingredients


Fig. 2. Designed fuzzy system for determining target compressive strength (TCSFS)

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4
3.2. Water to cement ratio sub-fuzzy system
(WCRFS)
In this sub-fuzzy system water to cement ratio
(w/c) is determined. The first input here was target
compressive strength (f
cm
) which was determined
from TCSFS. The second input was the cement type
that its fuzzy label set is defined as follows:

Cement Type= {LC325, C325, C425, C525,
HC525}
(4)

For instance, C325 shows that the compressive
strength of cubic cements mortar has been about 325
kg/cm
2
, during 28 days. Third input of sub-fuzzy
system was the shape of aggregates which its fuzzy
label is defined in the following set:

Shape of aggregates= {Rounded, Sub-Angular,
Angular}
(5)

Fourth input of sub-fuzzy system was the envi-
ronmental condition. The fuzzy label set for this input
is defined as follows:

Environmental condition= {Mild, Moderate,
Severe, Very Severe}
(6)

Consequently, the output fuzzy label set of sys-
tems is defined as follows:

w/c= {0.3, 0.31, 0.32, 0.33,.., A0.57,
A0.58, A0.59, A0.6}
(7)

Membership functions for inputs and output
fuzzy labels used for WCRFS system are shown in
Fig. 3. It could be mentioned that 648 rules were
defined for WCRFS system. A sample of them is:

IF f
cm
=Around 32 AND cement type=C425 AND shape of
aggregates=sub-angular AND environmental condition=
severe THEN w/c is 0.45.

3.3. Ideal grading curve sub-fuzzy system
(IGCFS)
Considering maximum packing density, aggre-
gate grading curve should be modified by so called
Fuller-Thompson relation tunable by specifying
power parameter n as follows:

(
(

|
.
|

\
|
|
.
|

\
|

|
.
|

\
|

=
n n
n
D
.
D
d
D
.
%
P
075 0
075 0
1
100

(8)

where P is cumulative passing percentage from each
sieve size, d is sieve size and D is maximum size of
aggregates (MSA). Parameter n could be specified
such that the grading curves the ideal one for maxi-
mum packing density and determination of fine to
coarse aggregate ratio.
It is known that this process improves the con-
crete properties like workability, compressive
strength and durability indexes (Abdel-Jawad and
Abdullah, 2002). In Fig. 4, a schematic of the ideal
grading curve fuzzy system (IGCFS) is shown. Hav-
ing two input parameters including maximum ag-
gregate size and regarded slump level, and one output
representing appropriate parameter n, pseudo trape-
zoidal fuzzy membership functions for input pa-
rameters and output parameter is shown in Fig. 4. The
fuzzy label set of maximum size of aggregates (MSA)
and slump level and n parameters are defined as fol-
lows:

MSA= {9.5, 12.5, 19, 25, 37.5} (9)

Slump level= {S1, S2, S3, S4} (10)

n= {0.1, 0.15, 0.2, 0.25, 0.3, 0.35, 0.4, 0.45,
0.5, 0.55, 0.6, 0.67}
(11)

25 rules were defined, which the following is a
sample rule:

IF MSA= 125 and slump=S2 THEN n=0.38

After determining the value of n in this
sub-fuzzy system and utilizing in the Fow-
ler-Thompson (Eq. (8)), the ideal grading curve could
be gained as depicted in Fig. 5 assuming that maxi-
mum size of aggregates is 19 millimeter and value of
n=0.35.
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Fig. 3. Designed fuzzy system for determining water to cement ratio (WCRFS)


Fig. 4. Designed fuzzy system for determining ideal grading curve (IGCFS)


Fig. 5. Grading curve drawn for n=0.35
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Now, it is possible to determine the percentage
of volume of coarse and fine aggregates in a way that
it gets it as close as possible to this curve.

3.4. Free water fuzzy system (FWFS)
FWFS is defined to determine the free water of
concrete. The fineness modulus of aggregates (F.M.)
according with ASTM C136 and target slump value
and shape of aggregates were the inputs of this
sub-fuzzy system and free water of concrete was its
output. Defined fuzzy label set for F.M. and free
water of concrete are as follows:

F.M. = {3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6, 6.5, 7} (12)

Free Water= {103, 113, 123, 133,, 273,
283, 293, 303}
(13)

75 rules were defined in this fuzzy inference
system. A sample of this is as follows:

IF F.M. is 0.4 AND slump is S3 AND shape of aggregates is
sub-angular THEN Free Water is 226.

Considering the determined water to cement ra-
tio and the amount of free water, the amount of ce-
ment could be calculated through the following equ-
ation:

Cement content= amount of free water/ wa-
ter-cement ratio
(14)

If the content of cement and free water calcu-
lated in this stage of the mix design is higher than
those contents required to provide structural details
and durability of concrete element, then it can be
reduced by using a suitable superplasticizer in a con-
stant water to cement ratio and slump. At the final
stage, the weight of aggregates (W
agg
) could be de-
fined from the following formula:


(W
agg
/P
agg
) + (W
cem
/P
cem
) + (W
water
/P
water
) +
(V
air
) =1
(15)

In the case of applying other admixtures in
producing concrete, they could also be placed in eq-
uation (15). Note that in this equation, the amounts of
P
agg
, P
cem
and P
water
were respectively the specific
gravity of aggregates in saturated condition with dry
surface, specific gravity of cement and density of
water which are obtained through performing some
tests before starting the mix design. Membership
functions for inputs and output parameters used for
IGCFS Fuzzy system are given in Fig. 6.

3.5. Modification of mix design in the laboratory
or the site
After preparing a concrete mix design by the
proposed fuzzy system, the resulting mix design must
be made real on the site or the laboratory and fresh
concrete testing like slump test should be done. If the
value obtained with the slump test and the target
slump value (as an input in the water to cement ratio
sub-fuzzy system (WCRFS)) are different, then some
modification should be applied in the mix design to
achieve the desired result as follows:

IF the slump test value is less than the target slump value,
THEN one of the following actions are performed
o One percent is added to the water to cement
ratio and then the modified amount of cement
and aggregates are calculated from equations
14 and 15. Although it may be observed that a
little decrease in the compressive strength of
concrete occurs with this measure.
o The small amount of plasticizer admixtures
use in concrete to adjust the slump value on
site or laboratory.
o If the slump test value is higher than the
target slump value, then one percent is de-
creased from water to cement ratio and the
modified amount of cement and aggregates are
calculated from equations 14 and 15.





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Table 1 General inputs required for creating a mix design

Mix
Maximum size of
aggregate (mm)
Specific compressive strength
(MPa) at 28 days
Target slump
(mm)
Quality of
workshop
Aggregate
shape
Mix 1 19 20 70 Low Quality Rounded
Mix 2 19 30 140 High Quality Sub-Angular
Mix 3 9.5 20 70 Low Quality Rounded
Mix 4 37 30 100 Moderate Qual- Sub-Angular
Mix 5 25 35 90 High Quality Angular
Mix 6 25 25 120 Low Quality Rounded


Fig. 6. Designed fuzzy system for determining the free water (FWFS)


Fig. 7. Cement content calculated by proposed fuzzy model and ACI method
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Table 2 Comparison of mix design of fuzzy model with those specified by expert

Concrete mix design
Water to ce-
ment ratio
Cement
(kg/m
3
)
Coarse aggregate
(kg/m
3
)
Fine aggregate
(kg/m
3
)
Free water
( kg/m
3
)
Fuzzy model 0.525 313 928 928 164
Mix 1

Expert 0.530 310 941 923 164
Fuzzy model 0.48 404 1025 683 194
Mix 2
Expert 0.49 404 1020 687 198
Fuzzy model 0.53 358 439 1318 190
Mix 3
Expert 0.53 356 441 1312 189
Fuzzy model 0.55 322 1134 644 177
Mix 4
Expert 0.55 320 1137 645 176
Fuzzy model 0.415 400 1154 628 166
Mix 5
Expert 0.42 400 1149 631 168
Fuzzy model 0.485 353 1059 718 171
Mix 6
Expert 0.48 350 1063 723 168

Table 3 Laboratory results of compressive strength and
slump values of mix design by fuzzy model

Mix
compressive strength (MPa) at 28
days
slump
(mm)
Mix 21 74
Mix 2 32 143
Mix 3 23 72
Mix 4 30 103
Mix 5 38 88
Mix 6 26 119

4. Results and discussion
4.1. Validation and feasibility of fuzzy system
In order to evaluate the feasibility of the pro-
posed fuzzy inference system, samples of concrete
mix design are compared with a traditional method
(ACI method) provided by an expert through. Table 1
shows inputs required for creating a mix design. Re-
sults of a concrete mix proportioned using proposed
fuzzy model and also results from a traditional mix,
designed by concrete technology experts, are pre-
sented in Table 2. As seen in Table 2, the values as-
sociated with the concrete ingredients designed using
fuzzy system are in a good agreement with the in-
gredients proportioned by an experienced concrete
technology expert.
The results of compressive strength and slump
tests of mixes that is designed by fuzzy model are
presented in Table 3. Comparing these results with
the target values in Table 1 shows that the fuzzy
model is able to provide a mix design in accordance
with the plan. Furthermore, it is able to attain the
target values of compressive strength and slump. For
example, the target values of compressive strength
and slump for mix 2 are 30 MPa and 140 mm in ac-
cordance with Table 1; while the laboratory results for
this parameters for the mix 2 are 32 MPa and 143 mm.

4.2. Comparison of proposed system based on
packing density
As it was mentioned, today, concrete technology
experts and civil engineers are focused on using lesser
amount of cement and thus decreasing harmful effects
on the environment. In order to achieve this goal,
grading of the aggregates must be done in a way that
creates the least amount of voids between the aggre-
gates and maximizes the volume of the solid grains
(aggregates) which is also known as "packing den-
sity" (Abdel-Jawad and Abdullah, 2002; Pofale and
Deo, 2010; Kwan and Fung 2009; Shen, 2010;
Brouwers and Radix, 2005). Hence, the value of ag-
gregate packing density (according to the standard
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test method for bulk density (unit weight) and voids
in aggregate (ASTM, 1998)) and the cement content
used in the mix proportioned from fuzzy system, with
those of American Concrete Institute (ACI 211.1,
1991) method presented in (Table 4). The reason for
choosing the ACI mix design method for this com-
parison is that, this method is one the most common
and customary methods employed for this purpose.
As illustrated in this paper, the packing density
value by proposed the fuzzy system is greater than the
packing density resulting from the ACI method.
Moreover, the cement content used in the mix design
by the fuzzy system is less than its content by the ACI
method (Fig. 7). The reason for this difference is that
as a part of the fuzzy model (used in this research), a
method is employed by means of which, after calcu-
lating and drawing the ideal grading curve in the mix
design (by calculating the value of parameter "n" and
using its associated equation), it is possible to choose
a volume for coarse and fine aggregates that is most
compatible with this curve. In addition, voids created
between aggregates in this method are also less than
the ACI mix design method. As a result, packing
density of aggregates and the amount of cement in the
proposed fuzzy model are respectively more and less
than those of other methods.

Table 4. Voids percent and packing density of aggregates
Aggregate mix Condition
Voids
(%)
Packing
density
Loose 0.301 0.699
Fuzzy
system
Rodded 0.228 0.772
Loose 0.304 0.696
M
i
x

1

ACI
Rodded 0.243 0.757
Loose 0.284 0.716
Fuzzy
system
Rodded 0.228 0.772
Loose 0.298 0.702 M
i
x

2

ACI
Rodded 0.237 0.763
Loose 0.300 0.700
Fuzzy
system
Rodded 0.237 0.763
Loose 0.304 0.696 M
i
x

3

ACI
Rodded 0.245 0.755


5. Conclusions

In this study, fuzzy systems were proposed for
mix design of normal concrete considering the
maximum packing density and minimum cement
content. Based on the findings of this research, the
following conclusions can be drawn from the re-
search:
1- Due to the involvement of various uncertain-
ties like linguistic terms, the application of fuzzy
systems is an excellent approach on mix design of
concrete.
2- Results of modeling with the proposed fuzzy
system are found to be satisfactory and fully in
agreement with the results of concrete mix design
specified by field experts of concrete technology.
Therefore it could be inferred that the proposed fuzzy
model is a reliable one.
3- Comparison of the results gained by the pro-
posed system considering the ideal aggregates grad-
ing curve with traditional ACI mix design method,
revealed that by application of the proposed system,
the amount of cement used could be decreased and on
the other hand, the amount of packing density would
be enhanced which means more aid in reducing pol-
lution of cement production and also improvement of
concrete durability.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge Dr. Mohsen
Tadayon and Dr. Hormoz Famili for providing the
needed data and prescribing the concrete mix designs
for this study and their valuable comments on this
paper.

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