Abstract
Concrete mix design is the science to obtain concrete proportions of cement, water, and aggregate, based on the particular concrete design method and their mix design parameters. However, the suitability of concrete proportion for high-performance concrete depends on resulting mix factors, namely, water, cement, fine aggregate, and coarse aggregate ratios. This paper implements the multicriteria decision-making techniques (MCDM) for ranking concrete mix factors and representative mix design methods. The study presents a framework to identify critical mix factors found from the concrete mix design methods for high-performance concrete using the two-phase AHP and TOPSIS approach. Three methods of concrete mix design, namely, American Concrete Institute (ACI) mix design method, Department of Energy (DOE) method, and Fineness Modulus (FM) method, are considered for ranking mix design methods and the resulting mix factors. Three hierarchy levels, having three criteria and seven subcriteria, and three alternatives are considered. The present research is attempted to provide MCDM framework to rank the concrete mix guidelines for any given environment such as concrete under sulphate and chloride attack and for evolving the performance-based concrete mix design techniques. Sensitivity and validation analysis is also provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Highlights
E mix factors significantly affecting the suitability of mix proportion for high-performance concrete are taken into consideration for ranking decision model. e concrete workability, strength and durability affecting mix factor, water-cement (w/c) ratio, concrete denseness indicators, density and fine aggregate to total aggregate (FA/T) ratio, concrete quality indicators, fine aggregate to cement (FA/c) ratio, and total aggregate to cement (T/c) ratio are considered
Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques may be employed to ascertain the criticality of mix factors and grading of mix design techniques. e research work related to the implementation of MCDM techniques in civil engineering is mainly devoted to construction technology. e application of MCDM approaches in the civil engineering theoretical concepts and methods are very scarce
I.e., the proportioning of the ingredients of concrete to get the speci c performance of concrete, depends on various mix factors related to ingredients of concrete and their combinations. e present research attempts to provide an integrated AHP-TOPSISbased MCDM model to rank the concrete mix guidelines for performance of concrete under water, sulphate, and chloride attack and performance of concrete for underground conditions and for evolving the performancebased concrete mix design techniques based on the required mix factors
Summary
Concrete mix design is the process of deciding the proportioning of the ingredients of concrete using wellexperimented design guidelines to get the specific performance of concrete. e various design guidelines that include the mix parameters such as properties of cement, minimum and maximum cement quantity, water-to-cement ratio, mixing water requirements, aggregates-to-cement ratio, properties of aggregates, aggregates grading, and proportions of aggregate may change with different concrete exposure conditions, with required properties of concrete in green or hardened state, and with performance requirement. E mix factors significantly affecting the suitability of mix proportion for high-performance concrete are taken into consideration for ranking decision model. Advances in Civil Engineering studied the applicability and performance of most widely adopted MCDM methods for the seismic retrofitting technologies of structures. E applications of MCDM to civil engineering are limited to the general problems, and they are not illustrative enough to evaluate the specific problems such as design methods, guidelines, and theoretical concept. E present study is the maiden attempt to apply MCDM techniques to select the mix design technique in concrete technology for high-performance concrete. Two popular MCDM techniques, namely, AHP and TOPSIS approach, which have demonstrated their applicability in different fields, are implemented for the problem of preferential mix design method applicable to high-performance concrete
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