Construction

and Building

Construction and Building Materials 21 (2007) 395–401

MATERIALS
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Bond behaviour between recycled aggregate concrete and steel rebars

a,* b
Jianzhuang Xiao , H. Falkner
a
Department of Building Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, PR China
b
Institute of Building Materials, Concrete Structures and Fire Protection, TU Braunschweig, D-38106 Braunschweig, Germany

Received 20 January 2005; received in revised form 1 June 2005; accepted 9 August 2005
Available online 30 September 2005

Abstract

Thirty six pullout tests were carried out in order to investigate the bond behaviour between recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) and
steel rebars. Three recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) replacement percentages (i.e., 0%, 50% and 100%) and two types of steel rebar (i.e.,
plain and deformed) were considered in this paper. Based on the test results, the influences of both RCA replacement percentages and the
rebar surface on the bond strength between the RAC and steel rebars were investigated. It was found that under the equivalent mix pro-
portion (i.e., the mix proportions are the same, except for different RCA replacement percentages), the bond strength between the RAC
and the plain rebar decreases with an increase of the RCA replacement percentage, whereas the bond strength between the RAC and the
deformed rebar has no obvious relation with the RCA replacement percentage. The empirical bond stress versus slip relationship between
RAC and steel rebars was established through regression analysis using the experimental data.
 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Recycled aggregate; Concrete; Bond behaviour

1. Introduction engineering, sometimes it should be reinforced with steel

Conservation of natural resources and preservation of
environment is the essence of any modern development.
The use of recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) is one such
an attempt and is one way to solve some of the problems
in construction engineering. The concept of using RAC is
now gaining popularity and research in this field has gained
some momentum. In fact, large amount of experimental
work has been carried out in the past. Previous investiga-
tors mainly engaged themselves in the processing of demol-
ished concrete, the mixture design, the physical and the
mechanical properties as well as the durability aspects.
Most of the findings have been extensively reviewed and
discussed by Nixon [1], Hansen [2,3] and ACI Committee
555 [4]. It was revealed that the relevant material properties
of RAC are generally lower than those of conventional
concrete, but they are still sufficient for practical applica-
tion in civil engineering [5]. To popularize the RAC in civil
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 21 65982787; fax: +86 21 65986345.
E-mail address: jzx@mail.tongji.edu.cn (J. Xiao).
bars. One of the most important requirements of reinforced
concrete constructions is the bond between concrete and
reinforcement. It is well-known that studies on the bond
behaviour between natural aggregate concrete and steel re-
bars has arisen wide attention in the engineering world for
a long time, and numerous investigations have been carried
out in this field [6–8]. It was made clear that the following
aspects contribute to the bond behaviour: (1) concrete type;
(2) rebar geometry; (3) loading conditions; (4) construction
details. However, to the best of the authorsÕ knowledge,
only a few investigations have been carried out in the field
of the bond behaviour between RAC and steel rebars
[9,10], and the preliminary conclusions on the bond behav-
iour between recycled aggregate concrete and steel rebars
seems to be comparatively limited in the qualitative stage.
This paper will consider the RAC replacement percent-
age and the steel rebar style as the main experimental
parameters. The aim of this work is to investigate the bond
behaviour between recycled aggregate concrete and steel
rebars and to establish a bond stress versus slip relationship
between recycled aggregate concrete and steel rebars. The

0950-0618/$ - see front matter  2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2005.08.008
396 J. Xiao, H. Falkner / Construction and Building Materials 21 (2007) 395–401

Nomenclature

s,s bond stress and slip, respectively P0 peak load corresponding to the peak bond stress
s0,s0 peak bond stress (i.e., bond strength) and corre- d diameter of the steel rebar
sponding slip, respectively la embedded length of steel rebar
s; s dimensionless bond and slip, respectively r replacement percentage of recycled coarse
a,b regression parameters in the bond–slip relation- aggregate
ship fcu cube compressive strength of concrete

testing program was carried out in the State Key Labora- Table 2
tory for Disaster Reduction in Civil Engineering at Tongji Surface characteristics of the rebars
University, Shanghai, PR China. Type Deformed bar Plain bar
Rib height 1.0 mm Smooth surface
2. Test design Rib width 0.6 mm
Rib spacing 6.5 mm
Rib face angle 55
2.1. Materials

Common Portland cement (C) type 32.5 R conforming Table 3

to the Chinese standard GB 175-1999, river sand (S), and Mix proportions of concrete (kg/m3)
drinking water (W) were used for the test specimens. The No. RCA replacement C S NCA RCA Mixing
recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) was obtained by process- percentage (r) (%) water
ing waste concrete from the runway of an airport in Shang- RAC-0 0 430 473 1058 0 185
hai. The natural coarse aggregate (NCA) was common RAC-50 50 430 473 529 529 185
crushed stone. The maximum particle size of both types RAC-100 100 430 473 0 1058 185
of coarse aggregate was 12.5 mm in accordance with the
Chinese standard GB50152-92. Table 1 lists the fundamen- crete. The mix proportions of the concrete are given in
tal physical properties of both natural and recycled coarse Table 3.
aggregates. Plain and deformed (i.e., crescent ribbed) low-
carbon steel rebars with yield strengths 300 and 420 MPa 2.3. Preparation of specimens
were used and a diameter size of 10 mm was adopted for
this investigation. The surface features of the rebars are de- Fig. 1 shows the pullout test specimens. The main
scribed in Table 2. information about the specimens is given in Table 4.
The specimens were cast with the steel rebar in a horizon-
2.2. Mix proportion tal position in order to simulate the situation of end rebar
anchorage in concrete beams. The steel bars were rust
The ratio of the recycled to the total aggregates (by free. For each concrete batch, the cube compressive
weight) is termed as the RCA replacement percentage (r). strength was determined on six 100 · 100 · 100 mm3
Due to the high water absorption the used RCAs were cubes. All the specimens were demoulded a day after
pre-soaked by additional water before mixing. The water pouring and transferred to the curing room under natural
amount used to pre-soak the RCAs was calculated on the conditions for 28 days.
basis of the saturated surface-dry condition. The water/ce- The mean values of the measured cube compressive
ment ratio was kept constantly to 0.43. The mixtures were strength of the RAC are also listed in Table 4. It can be
divided into three groups and carried out under the same noted from Table 4 that the compressive strength decreases
laboratory conditions. The main difference between the with the increase of the RCA replacement percentage.
three groups was the RCA replacement percentage, which When the RCA replacement percentage equals 100%, the
was 0, 50% and 100%, respectively. Normal concrete compressive strength is approximately 20% lower com-
(NC), i.e., a concrete with r = 0, served as reference con- pared to normal concrete.

Table 1
Physical properties of NCA and RCA
Coarse Bulk density Apparent density Water absorption Crush index Needle-slice particles content Mud content
aggregate (kg/m3) (kg/m3) (%) (%) (%) (%)
Natural 1453 2820 0.40 4.04 4.8 1.80
Recycled 1290 2520 9.25 15.2 6.2 4.08
 J. Xiao, H. Falkner / Construction and Building Materials 21 (2007) 395–401 397

Fig. 1. Sketch of pullout specimens: (a) sketch; (b) photo.

Table 4 relative displacement between the steel rebar and the con-
Description of the pullout specimens crete, that is the slippage value at the free end of the rebar,
RCA fcu Plain bar Deformed bar can be computed by the displacement difference between
replacement (MPa) No. Quantity No. Quantity the two LVDTs.
percentage
(r)
3. Test results and analysis
0 43.52 RAC-I-0 6 RAC-II-0 6
50 39.27 RAC-I-50 6 RAC-II-50 6
100 34.63 RAC-I-100 6 RAC-II-100 6
3.1. Load versus slip curves

2.4. Test setup
The setup for the pullout test is shown in Fig. 2, which is
accordance with the Chinese standard GB50152-92. The
load (P) and the slip (s) at the free end of steel rebar
anchored in the test specimen were measured in order to
determine a load–slip relationship. The monotonically
increased load was applied by the testing machine. Two
high precision linear variable differential transducers
(LVDTs) were attached to a 25 mm thick mild-steel plate.
One LVDT measured the movement on the top concrete
surface of the specimen while the other one recorded the
displacement of the free end of the steel bar embedded in
the concrete. A personal computer was used to collect test
data automatically. Under different loading levels, the
Fig. 2. Photo of test setup.
The measured load versus slip curves for the six series of
specimens (i.e., RAC-I-0, RAC-I-50, RAC-I-100, RAC-II-
0, RAC-II-50 and RAC-II-100) are drawn in Fig. 3. The
bold curve represents the calculated average of each test
series. Due to difficulties in the test procedure in some
groups, some tests failed to show the descending branch
of the load versus slip curves. By analyzing the above-men-
tioned curves it can be seen that the bond development and
deterioration process between the recycled aggregate con-
crete and steel rebars is similar to that between natural
aggregate concrete and steel rebars as reported by Edwards
and Yannopoulos [11]. Each curve reflects the behaviour at
different stages which are micro-slip, internal cracking,
pullout, descending and residual. At the micro-slip stage,
the load is small and no obvious slip occurs at the free
end of the rebar, i.e., the load versus slip curve remains lin-
ear. At the internal cracking stage, when the load increases
towards a critical value, the free end of the rebar begins to
slip, which demonstrates that the adhesion force at the
anchorage has nearly been exhausted. After this stage,
the rate of the slip begins to increase and the ascending
portion of the curve becomes distinctly nonlinear. At the
pullout stage, the load reaches the peak load (P0) and some
longitudinal splitting cracks develop along the weakest
area of the concrete cover. The mean value of the peak slip
(s0) for RAC-I-0, RAC-I-50 and RAC-I-100 is 0.22, 0.20
and 0.14 mm, respectively; whereas the corresponding va-
lue for RAC-II-0, RAC-II-50 and RAC-II-100 is 0.69,
0.47 and 1.2 mm, respectively. At the descending stage,
the load declines rapidly and the slip increases until the
steel bar is completely pulled out. At the residual stage,
when the slip of the loading end reaches a certain value,
the load becomes nearly constant and is approximately less
than one half of the peak load.
398 J. Xiao, H. Falkner / Construction and Building Materials 21 (2007) 395–401

16.0
16.0

12.0
12.0

Load (kN)
Load (kN)

8.0
8.0

4.0
4.0

0.0 0.0
0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0

a Slip (mm) b Slip (mm)

30.0
16.0
24.0

12.0

Load (kN)
Load (kN)

18.0

8.0
12.0

4.0
6.0

0.0 0.0
0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0
c Slip (mm) d Slip (mm)

30.0 30.0

24.0 24.0
Load (kN)
Load (kN)

18.0 18.0

12.0 12.0

6.0 6.0

0.0 0.0
0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0
e Slip (mm) f Slip (mm)

Fig. 3. Test curves of load versus slip: (a) RAC-I-0; (b) RAC-I-50; (c) RAC-I-100; (d) RAC-II-0; (e) RAC-II-50; (f) RAC-II-100.

Table 5
3.2. Bond strength The summary of the bond strength
No. Mean peak Mean bond Standard Coefficient
Under the conditions of these pullout tests, the bond load P0 strength s0 deviation of variation
stress along the whole anchorage length of the steel rebar (N) (MPa) (MPa) (%)
can be considered to be uniformly distributed. The bond RAC-I-0 14030 8.93 1.29 14.47
strength can be expressed by RAC-I-50 12310 7.84 1.46 18.58
RAC-I-100 13130 8.36 1.29 15.46
s0 ¼ P 0 =ðpdla Þ; ð1Þ
RAC-II-0 27300 17.39 1.50 8.62
where s0 is the peak bond stress in MPa between concrete RAC-II-50 27060 17.24 0.78 4.53
and steel rebar which is also termed as the bond strength; RAC-II-100 27300 17.39 0.34 1.95
P0 is the peak load in N; d is the diameter of the steel rebar
in mm, here 10 mm; and la is the embedded length of the as from Fig. 4, it can be concluded that under the condition
steel rebar in mm, here 50 mm. of equivalent mix proportions (i.e., the mix proportions are
The bond strengths obtained from the test results are the same, except for different RCA replacement percent-
summarized in Table 5 and the mean values of the bond ages) and compared to normal concrete (i.e., the RCA
strengths are compared in Fig. 4. From Table 5, as well replacement percentage is 0), the bond strength between
 J. Xiao, H. Falkner / Construction and Building Materials 21 (2007) 395–401 399

strength reaches the maximum value when the RCA

replacement percentage is 100% for both plain and de-
formed rebars. This may be due to the similar modulus
of elasticity of the recycled coarse aggregate and the cement
paste of the recycled aggregate concrete [12]. Therefore, for
the case of equal compressive strength, it can be inferred
that the bond strength between the recycled aggregate con-
crete with r = 100% and steel rebars is higher than that be-
tween the normal concrete and steel rebars.

4. Approximation of the normalized bond–slip relationship

Fig. 4. Comparison for the mean value of bond strength. An analytical expression for the bond–slip relationship of
RAC is necessary for the modeling bond at the steel–
the recycled aggregate concrete and the plain rebar de- concrete interface in the finite element analysis of reinforced
creases by 12% and 6% with an RCA replacement percent- recycled aggregate concrete members. The following dimen-
age of 50% and 100%, respectively. However, the bond sionless bond stress ðsÞ and slip ðsÞ parameters are used:
strength between the recycled aggregate concrete and the s s
deformed rebar is much closer to each other, irrespective s ¼ ; s ¼ ; ð2Þ
s0 s0
of the RCA replacement percentage. For normal concrete
or recycled aggregate concrete, the bond strength between where s0 is the peak bond stress (i.e., bond strength) and s0
deformed steel rebars and concrete is approximately is the slip corresponding to the s0. Based on comparisons
100% higher than that between plain steel rebars and con- with test results, the normalized bond–slip relationship of
crete. The coefficient of variation for the bond strength re- RAC can be approximately expressed as
lated to the plain steel rebar is much higher than the one ( a
ðsÞ s 6 1;
for the deformed steel rebar. This can be explained as fol- s ¼ s ð3Þ
s > 1;
lows. The bond between recycled aggregate concrete and bðs1Þ2 þs
deformed rebars depends much more on the mechanical where a and b are constants which have to be determined
anchorage and friction resistance, whereas the bond be- from the test results. It should be remarked here that the
tween recycled aggregate concrete and plain rebars mainly first equation of Eq. (3) was suggested by Haraji [13], while
depends on the adhesion between steel and concrete, which the second equation in Eq. (3) was proposed by Guo [14]
is strongly influenced by the RCA replacement percentage. for the descending portion of compressive stress-strain
relationship, in both cases for normal concrete. In this
3.3. Relative bond strength analysis, Eq. (3) was extended to the recycled aggregate
concrete by modifying the parameters a and b. In Eq. (3),
In order to study the impact of coarse aggregate type, the value of parameter b is related to the area under the
the relative bond strength is defined as the ratio of the descending part of the s  s curve. By using a data regres-
mean bond strength to the square root of the mean com- sion program, the value of the parameter a was determined
pressive strength. The calculated relative bond strengths to 0.3 for all tests, which is the same as the result reported
of different specimens are listed in Table 6. It can be seen by Haraji for normal concrete [13]. The values of the
from Table 6 that compared to the values of normal con- parameter b can be computed according to the similar data
crete, with an RCA replacement percentage of 50% and regress program and are given in Table 7.
100%, the relative bond strength between the recycled The value of parameter a obviously does not change
aggregate concrete and the plain rebar is decreased by with the variations of the mix proportion, which can be
7.4% and increased by 5.2%, respectively, whereas the rel- confirmed by the test results for both plain and fiber rein-
ative bond strength between the recycled aggregate con- forced concrete [13], high-performance concrete [15] and
crete and the deformed rebar is increased by 4.2% and the test results in this paper. Whereas from Table 7 it can
12%, respectively. It is interesting that the relative bond
Table 6 Table 7
List of relative bond strength Regress parameter of b
pffiffiffiffiffiffi
No. s0 = fcu No. b
RAC-I-0 1.35 RAC-I-0 0.038
RAC-I-50 1.25 RAC-I-50 0.038
RAC-I-100 1.42 RAC-I-100 0.038
RAC-II-0 2.64 RAC-II-0 0.10
RAC-II-50 2.75 RAC-II-50 0.10
RAC-II-100 2.96 RAC-II-100 0.15
400 J. Xiao, H. Falkner / Construction and Building Materials 21 (2007) 395–401

be inferred that the area under the descending branch does
not decrease with the increase of the RCA replacement per-
centage, which indicates that the energy absorbing capacity
of the recycled aggregate concrete does not decrease from
the bond–slip relation points of view. It can also be con-
cluded from the variation of the b-value in Table 7 that
the energy absorbing capacity for deformed rebars an-
chored in the RAC is much higher than that of plain rebars
under the condition of a certain slip.
The average test curves and the predicted curves pro-
vided by Eq. (3) for the RAC are plotted in Fig. 5. It can
be seen that the predicted curves are fitting well to the test
curves, which demonstrates that Eq. (3) can be used to sim-
ulate the whole process of bond–slip relationship of recy-
cled aggregate concrete with plain and deformed rebars.
5. Discussion on anchorage length
The parameters considered in this investigation were
kept to a minimum and the attention was focused on the
bond between RAC and steel rebars. Therefore, the
anchorage length of steel rebars in RAC can only be dis-
cussed preliminarily. Under the condition of the equivalent
mixture ratio, the compressive strength of the recycled
aggregate concrete is smaller than that of the normal con-
crete. But under the condition of the same compressive
strength, the bond strength of the recycled aggregate
concrete with r = 100% is higher than that of the normal
concrete. According to the well-known influencing factors
for the anchorage length, such as compressive strength of
concrete, diameter of rebar and yield strength of rebar

1.2 1.2

1.0 1.0

0.8 0.8
τ/τ 0

τ/τ 0

0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4
Test Test
0.2 0.2
Predicted Predicted

0.0 0.0
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10

a s/s 0 b s/ s 0

1.2 1.2

1.0 1.0

0.8 0.8
τ/τ 0
τ/τ0

0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4
Test Test
0.2 Predicted 0.2
Predicted

0.0 0.0
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
c s/ s 0 d s/ s 0

1.2 1.2

1.0 1.0

0.8 0.8
τ /τ 0
τ/τ 0

0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

Test Test
0.2 0.2
Predicted Predicted
0.0 0.0
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
e s/ s 0 f s/ s 0

Fig. 5. Comparisons of predicted bond–slip relationship with test results: (a) RAC-I-0; (b) RAC-I-50; (c) RAC-I-100; (d) RAC-II-0; (e) RAC-II-50;
(f) RAC-II-100.
 J. Xiao, H. Falkner / Construction and Building Materials 21 (2007) 395–401
[6–8], the anchorage length of steel rebars in the recycled
aggregate concrete with r = 100% can be estimated to be
slightly shorter than those for normal concrete for the case
of an equivalent compressive strength. Furthermore, RI-
LEM [16] recommended that the tensile splitting strength
of recycled aggregate concrete which is closely related to
the bond performance can be chosen as the same for nor-
mal concrete. Therefore, the present paper suggests that
the anchorage length of steel rebars embedded in the recy-
cled aggregate concrete with r = 100% may be determined
as the same for normal concrete under the condition of
the same compressive strength.
6. Conclusions
The following observations and conclusions can be
made on the basis of the current experimental results.
(1) The general shape of the load versus slip curve
between recycled aggregate concrete and steel rebars
is similar to the one for normal concrete and steel
rebars, which includes micro-slip, internal cracking,
pullout, descending and residual stages.
(2) Under the condition of the equivalent mix proportion
and compared with that of normal concrete, the bond
strength between the recycled aggregate concrete and
the plain rebar decreases by 12% and 6% for an RCA
replacement percentage of 50% and 100%, respec-
tively; while the bond strength between the recycled
aggregate concrete and the deformed rebar is similar,
irrespective of the RCA replacement percentage.
(3) For the case of the same compressive strength, the
bond strength between the recycled aggregate con-
crete with r = 100% and steel rebars is higher than
the one between normal concrete and steel rebars.
(4) For the recycled aggregate concrete, the bond
strength between deformed steel rebars and concrete
is approximately 100% higher than the one between
plain steel rebars and concrete, and the coefficient
of variation for the bond strength of the plain steel
rebar is much higher than the one for the deformed
steel rebar.
(5) The normalized bond versus slip relationship for the
recycled aggregate concrete can be fitted by Eq. (3).
(6) The anchorage length of steel rebars embedded in the
recycled aggregate concrete with r = 100% can be
chosen as the same for normal concrete under the con-
dition of the same compressive strength of concrete.
401
Acknowledgements
This work was sponsored by the Fok Ying Tung Educa-
tion Foundation (No. 91075) and the Shanghai Science and
Technology Committee (No. 04DZ05044), which are
highly appreciated. The authors like to thank Mr. Pisheng
Li for his contributions in realizing the tests. The Alexan-
der von Humboldt Foundation is also gratefully acknowl-
edged, which sponsored the first authorÕs research stay at
TU Braunschweig in Germany for more than one year.
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