The Investigation into the Effect of Hydrostatic Pressure on the Engineering Properties of Hardened Concrete

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of hydrostatic pressure on the engineering properties of hardened concrete. To this end, a concrete column with dimensions of 100 cm width, 25 cm depth and 250 cm height was produced using C20 class concrete. While pouring the concrete, 15 cm reference cube samples were taken from the fresh concrete. After 28 days, 8 from the cube samples and 128 from different hydrostatic heights, in total 136 pieces of core samples with & Oslash;100 mm diameter were taken and their compressive strength was determined. The average compressive strength of the reference core samples was 36.95 N/mm(2) and the compressive strength of other samples changed between 37.3 N/mm(2) and 43.0 N/mm(2) according to the hydrostatic pressure. It was concluded that compressive strength changed between 0.95% and 16.37% according to the reference sample. Statistical analysis was conducted based on the experimental results. The compressive strength of the core samples related to its hydrostatic height and physical properties were predicted with a high reliability. A model equation was formed to convert the compressive strength of the core samples into reference compressive strength according to hydrostatic height and the convertibility coefficients were ascertained.