STRENGTH EVALUATION OF EXISTING REINFORCED

CONCRETE STRUCTURE
Naser Alenezi
Building and Energy Department, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research
Shuwaik, Kuwait
naserq8@hotmail.com
Many buildings which satisfied the minimum requirement
of concrete strength during construction showed early signs
of deterioration. This raised concern about the quality of
some concrete to maintain its strength is adequate its service
life. Hence, it is not enough that concrete strength is
adequate at 28 days. Concrete need to maintain its
properties during its service life. That is why engineers
design concrete not only for strength but also for durability.

ABSTRACT
Reinforced concrete is the most commonly used
construction materials not only in Kuwait but slso
worldwide.
It has numerous advantages over other
costruction materials, especially in this country. This study
was conducted to evaluate the structural integrity of a villa
located in Kuwait. The buiding consists of basement floor,
ground floor, first floor and second floor. The building was
constructed using skeleton type system composed of
columns, beams and slabs. The two storey building showed
cracks in the columns, beams, and slabs. The recent study
of structural integrity and evaluation included, comparing
the as built with the design drawings, detailed visual
inspection, evaluating the quality of concrete by using field
and laboratory tests and structure analysis to determine the
safety factors. Problems encountered in reinforced concrete
buildings are not limited to those where the concrete was not
designed for durability. It includes also concrete which was
not constructed for good performance and for durability. So
the second cause of problems in reinforced concrete
buildings is related to inadequate construction. In fact,
many of the problems encountered today in reinforced
concrete structures are related to inadequate construction
practices.Keywords-structure, concrete, materials, slab,
analysis.
I.

In fact, many of the problems encountered today in RC

structures are related to inadequate construction practice.
Concrete hides some of the problems, but not all related to
concrete shrinkage cracking, openings for HVAC ducts,
corrosion etc. are not always hidden. They appear at
different ages in the life of the structure, but they could have
been be easily avoided with adequate construction practices
and engineering supervision.
Concrete structures in Kuwait worsen too early as a
consequence of the aggressive service environment, hot and
dry climate that is distinguished by high rates of water
evaporation during the day time, the coastal area
condensation in during the night, and salt contaminated
wind borne dust and ground water. The unpleasant effect of
the climate is escalated by the use of unsuitable concrete
making resources and inexpert laborers.
The result of this study revealed that the improper
supervision quality control procedures undertaken during
concrete production are the major factors in reducing
concrete quality. Due to the absence of enforceable national
concrete construction guidelines, adverse effects of bad
practices on durability of concrete structures have become
difficult to overcome and particularly inevitable.

Introduction

Concrete is the main and the basic construction building

material used in Kuwait compared with the use of wood and
steel which are used in building structures. Therefore,
concrete is the primary of building and construction and in
industry in the state of Kuwait of some sort of specialty the
main construction buildings in Kuwait, the life range of all
buildings and structures all over the world is about 50 to 60
years yet this number is lessened in Kuwait to reach the
range of 10 20 years.

II.

Methodology

A visual inspection was carried to evaluate the building

original drawings to what is done in the site. A plane of
experiments and tests on field and laboratories were carried
out to complete the aims of this limited study, this included
choosing of some concrete cores from columns, slabs,
beams. Also two tests were taken to evaluate the strength of
concrete which are ultrasonic pulse test and Rebound
hammer test.

Concrete production is often well thought-out to be the

preliminary and chief phase in producing durable concrete
structure. It has many features such as superiority of
concrete components, material goods of the concrete mix
design, batching of materials and mixing circumstances,
skillful manual workers, good craftsmanship, and
dependable regulation (ACI 318).

Field Evaluation

186

The condition survey of the structure was taken as important

steps in the process of the structural evaluation. The survey
is used to document important information and data about
the building and about the cause of concern. For field
evaluation detailed sketches of location and width of cracks,
settlement, and deformation are necessary.

on top of it.
Many cracks on most of the structures (beams, slabs,
columns, walls).
Columns are not leveled.
Diagonal cracks on some walls.
There are moisture and spots on some slabs.

Laboratory Evaluation
Laboratory estimation was exploited to judge the features of
the materials used for concrete production. Drilled cores
testing are the most direct method to determine the in-situ
compressive strength of concrete. It is generally used in a
new structure (or old buildings) when concrete did not pass
the acceptance criteria, or when there is a reason to doubt
the performance/ quality of the concrete.
Compressive strength of concrete core
The quality of concrete is often judged by its strength. In
this study, fifteen cores samples were taken. The selection
of the cores were random from the whole building which
are six cores from both columns and slabs, and four from
beam.
The core test is according to the standard
specification ASTM C42M.

Fig. 1: Mortar covered the defects of the slab

Rebounds Hammer test

Rebound hammer test is done to find out the compressive of
concrete by using rebound hammer as per ASTM C 805-02.
The underlying principle of the rebound hammer test is the
rebound of an elastic mass depends on the hardness of the
surface against which its mass strikes. When the plunger of
the rebound hammer is pressed against the surface of the
concrete, the pring- controlled mass rebound and the extent
of such a rebound depends upon the surface hardness of the
concrete. The rebound value is read from graduated scale
and is designated as the rebound number or rebound index.
The compressive strength can be read directly from the
graph provided on the body of the hammer.
III

Fig. 2: Settlement on the slab of the floor

Laboratory Evaluation

Tests Results

Compressive strength of concrete core

Field evaluation
Visual Inspection
The visual inspection was made to examine any construction
defects and after the inspection, there are many defects were
found which are:

Some beams and columns are misplaced.

Many construction defects were cover by mortar (Fig.1).
Some columns dont a uniform concrete which means they
have been poured in stages (Fig. 2).
Some settlement is some slabs.
Some columns are bigger in width than the beams width

187

In this study, 15 cores samples were taken, cures at

controlled temperature and moister, and tested for the
official strength at 28 days. The core tests results to show
the strength of the concrete which was used. The study took
six cores for column, four cores for beams and six cores for
slabs from all floors of the building. Its well understood
that concrete mixes with the same mix magnitude and
treatment time, should obtain the same compressive strength
estimation. However in this study although most of the
concrete in this building has the same mix proportions, there
was a variation between the compressive strength results
among different members (beams, slabs, and columns.)

This due to the difference in the accuracy of proportioning,

type of concrete to be casted after batching.

1 shows the compressive strength for a chosen members in

the building.

In spite of all, all memebers of this building has indicated a

compressive strength of lower than their strength during the
design stage, and one column of the isolated strength
records were under 33.5 kg/cm2. Weak concretes were used
in the absence of supervision or refusal. Concrete proposed
to reach its designed strength when treated at 28 days . ACI
code specified that concrete should continuously treated for
at least 7 days despite this fact construction site in Kuwait,
the concrete is treated by wetting the drying mode for 7 days
in summer and 2 days in winter, though this action is not
severely followed and often not performed at all.

According to ACI specification, the compressive strength of

concrete of the cores would be accepted if two conditions
are meet. First, there should be no value from the
compressive strength of the cores less than 85% of the
design compressive strength which is 250 kg/cm2 for both
slabs and beams. And for the columns is 300 kg/cm2.
The second condition is there should be no value for any
single member less than 75% of the design compressive
strength. The cores test did not meet the requirement of
ACI specification as show in table 2.
Table 1.The Results of The Core Tests
Member

Average of
Compressive
strength for
(Cube
kg/cm2)

Condition
I Not less
than

The dissimilarity of concretes design strength must be

according to the sort of that for the structural element,
although , this research explained and they reached the
result that this condition was not considered , as most of
Columns
123.5
225
design strengths were 250kg/cm2 , a part from the structural
Slabs
156.6
212.5
element sort. Structural elements used in this study. Tabel
Beams
132.7
212.5
Table 1. Compressive strenght test results for the extracted concrete cores
1.

Minimum
value for
individual
kg/cm2

Condition
2 Not less
than

41.9
87.4
109.4

225
187.5
187.5

The weakness of the conrete that was used for this

Sample
ID

Member

Length mm

Diameter mm

weight
(SSD)
gm

Density
(SSD),
gm/cm3

Load, kN

Comp
Strength,
kg/cm2

L/D

Corr. Comp.
Strength,
kg/cm2

Equivalent
Cube strength,
kg/cm2

C1

Column

144.8

73.8

1412.1

2.28

75.9

180.9

1.96

180.9

226.2

C2

Column

140.3

73.3

1307.0

2.21

13.9

33.6

1.91

33.5

41.9

C3

Beam

146.6

73.3

1400.6

2.26

49.5

119.6

2.00

119.6

149.5

C4

slab

110.3

73.6

956.2

2.04

60.4

144.8

1.50

139.0

173.7

C5

Column

148.2

73.5

1405.4

2.24

30.7

73.8

2.02

73.8

92.2

C6

Beam

147.0

73.3

1391.9

2.24

52.1

125.9

2.01

125.9

157.4

C7

slab

88.4

73.6

873.6

2.32

75.6

181.2

1.20

166.9

208.7

C8

Column

149.8

73.7

1471.2

2.30

49.3

117.9

2.03

117.9

147.3

C9

Beam

146.0

73.3

1433.8

2.33

37.9

91.6

1.99

91.6

114.5

C10

slab

128.8

73.5

1281.2

2.34

64.3

154.5

1.75

151.5

189.3

C10

slab

101.2

73.7

1133.9

2.63

58.7

140.3

1.37

132.9

166.1

C11

slab

115.7

73.7

1114.3

2.26

30.3

72.4

1.57

69.9

87.4

C12

Column

147.0

73.7

1469.2

2.34

49.4

118.1

1.99

118.1

147.6

C13

Beam

144.2

73.4

1428.6

2.34

36.3

87.5

1.96

87.5

109.4

C14

slab

108.7

73.6

1082.7

2.34

43.2

103.5

1.48

99.2

124.0

C15

Column

142.3

73.6

1364.2

2.25

28.7

68.8

1.93

68.8

86.0

IV.

building which reach to the shortage in 60% of the

columns, 49% fo the beams and 40% of the slab
comparing to its designe that was mention in the

Conclusions

The investigation done under this study have reached the

following results:

188

2.

3.

4.

drawings. So the conrete was not acceptable to

what is suppose to be.
Most columns can not take the loads when the
building is finished which will lead to collapse of
the sturcture.
There are many huge construction defects which
will weaken the buidings members (beams, slabs,
and columns) like spalles
.
The constructed concrete strength does not match
the codes for concrete strenght which will effects
the durability of concrete.

References
1) BSI 1881: Partt 119. 1983. Method for determination of
compressive strenght of concrete cubes.
2) S. Albahar, and Abdulsalam, S., 2001. Evaluation of
quality of concrete produced on site for residential
housing in kuwait. Kuwait institute for Scientific
Research.
3) A. Neville, Properties of Concrete. Third edition, 1981.

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