E3S Web of Conferences 283, 01016 (2021) https://doi.org/10.

1051/e3sconf/202128301016
ICCAUE 2021

Analysis of the Influence of Water-cement Ratio on Concrete

Strength
Wei LI1
1Yantai International Airport Group Co., Ltd, Yantai, Shandong, China

Abstract: In this paper, the main strength of the relationship between water-cement ratio and concrete, and
it uses the contrast test of different water cement ratio, finally, it gets the regular change between water
cement ratio and concrete strength. The test results show that: cement. when the ratio of large stone: small
stone: water: admixture is 340: 618: 1009: 433: 139: 6.8, the water-cement ratio of concrete is within the
range of 0.371-0.479. The concrete strength of the sample decreases with the increase of the water-cement
ratio. Finally, the relationship between the concrete strength and the water-cement ratio is obtained by fitting.

1 Introduction The regression relationship between water cement ratio

and concrete strength is established. It provides reference
With the accelerated development of the country, the for mix design of high performance concrete in the
construction industry has shown great vitality. The future.
quality of concrete is the guarantee of construction, the
foundation of the construction industry, and the
cornerstone of rapid development. In order to ensure the 2 Experimental principle and thought
quality of concrete, we need to mix cementing materials,
aggregates or other admixtures, in which part of the 2.1 Test principle
water used to mix the concrete is used for the cement
hydration reaction and the other part is used to improve According to relevant codes and construction experience,
the workability of the concrete. When the amount of the concrete design takes the compressive strength as the
cement is the same, the ratio of water cement is too large design index, so the research on the water-cement ratio
or too small, which is not conducive to the improvement and the compressive strength of concrete is more
of cement concrete strength. Therefore, more attention in-depth. At present, the more common method is to use
should be paid to the water-cement ratio of concrete. [1] Paul's formula to estimate the water-cement ratio of
According to previous studies by scholars, the main concrete:
factors affecting the flexural strength of concrete mainly
include the water-cement ratio and the related properties W
R 28 =
ARc (  B)
of aggregate, among which the water-cement ratio is still C (1)
one of the most important factors affecting the flexural
strength of cement concrete [2].Wang N [3] et al. took the There is: R28 ——The compressive strength of
water-cement ratio as the control variable to make test concrete at 28 days;
samples and studied the variation rule of the compressive A and B are the coefficients;
strength and permeability of foamed concrete. Liu D. D. Rc ——The compressive strength of cement at 28
[4]
and Li Z. [5] studied the influence of water-cement ratio
on the performance of pervious concrete. Xie W. W. [6], a days;
scholar, tested the compressive strength of concrete with W ——Water-cement ratio.
different water-cement ratio, lime content and C
phosphorus slag content, and obtained the variation rule
of concrete's compressive strength with the three factors. 2.2 Test idea
Li S [7] et al. mainly studied the nonlinear characteristics
of concrete strength and established a multivariate Based on the mix ratio of cement pavement concrete, this
nonlinear model between parameters such as fly ash study further studies how the water-cement ratio affects
content and strength. the strength of concrete. Specific mix ratio is: cement:
Therefore, this paper carried out control tests under sand: big stone: small stone: water: admixture = 340: 618:
different water-cement ratios to study the influence of 1009: 433: 139: 6.8. The test configuration cement
different water-cement ratios on the strength of concrete. content is A-50, A-45...A, A+5...For 18 kinds of cement

*Corresponding author: lw.71@163.com

© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
E3S Web of Conferences 283, 01016 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202128301016
ICCAUE 2021

concrete of A+35, three cylindrical specimens and three The cement used in this test is "Qixia" brand P.042.5
trabecular specimens were prepared for each grade bulk cement produced by Qixia Zhonglian Cement
water-cement ratio, A total of 54 cylindrical specimens Co., Ltd., Yantai. which has been tested by relevant units
and 54 trabecular specimens were tested for their flexural and all indicators meet the standard requirements.
tensile strength respectively.
(2) Aggregate
3 Experiment
The fine aggregate used in this test is river sand. and the
technical indexes are shown in Table 1:
3.1 The raw materials

(1) Cement
Tab.1 results of fine aggregate screening

Number The test items The measured values Standard values

1 Cl- 0.014% ≤0.02

2 SO3 0.2% ≤0.5
3 Robustness 4.9% ≤8
4 Alkali active reaction Inactive Inactive
5 Mica and light matter content 0.5% ≤1

6 Organic content Shallow Shallow

16~.31.5 mm gravel produced in Qixia quarry.

Coarse aggregate was mixed with 4.75~16 mm and
Tab. 2 Screening results of coarse aggregate

Number The test items The measured values Standard values

1 Sulfides and sulfates a 0.7% ≤1

2 Chloride content 0.013% ≤0.02

3 Red and white skin content of gravel b 5.2% ≤10

4 The compressive strength of rock 126MPa ≥100

5 Los Angeles attrition loss 26% ≤30

The color is lighter than standard The color is lighter than standard
6 Organic content
solution solution

7 Activity of alkali Inactive Inactive

8 Bibulous rate 0.6% ≤2

9 Robustness 1.9 ≤3

(3) Admixture
3.2 The process of experiment
According to the site conditions of this construction, the
admixture selected in this test is AJF air entrain efficient According to the test scheme, there are 18 groups of tests,
water reducing agent, which meets the requirements of with 3 cylinder samples and 3 trabecular samples in each
the experiment. group, a total of 54 cylinder samples and 54 trabecular
samples. The splitting tensile strength and bending
tensile strength of the specimen were tested after curing.
(4) Water
The water must pass the relevant test indicators required
by the specification.

2
E3S Web of Conferences 283, 01016 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202128301016
ICCAUE 2021

Tab.3 bending tensile strength of samples with different

water-cement ratios

Number Cleavage strength（MPa） Water-cement ratio

1 6.27 0.479
2 6.51 0.471
3 6.40 0.463
4 5.86 0.456
5 6.08 0.448
6 6.51 0.441
7 6.54 0.434
8 6.23 0.428
9 6.29 0.421
10 6.83 0.415
Fig. 1 Experimental process 11 6.44 0.409
12 7.25 0.403
13 6.70 0.397
14 7.45 0.392
15 6.61 0.386
16 6.98 0.381
17 7.13 0.376
18 7.54 0.371

4.2 Analysis
After the numerical statistical analysis of the obtained
data, the bending tensile strength measured in the test
was plotted into a scatter plot with the water-cement ratio
as the abscissor, and the quadratic polynomial was
Fig. 2 Strength test
selected for fitting to obtain the relationship as shown in
Fig.3.

4 Test results and analysis

4.1 Results
Through the above tests, the experimental results
obtained are shown in Table 3 below.

Fig.3 Relationship between bending tensile strength and water-cement ratio

It can be seen from the relation diagram of There is:  b ——Flexural strength, MPa;
water-cement ratio and bending tensile strength that
W ——Water-cement ratio.
when the water-cement ratio of concrete is 0.371~0.479,
the quadratic polynomial is used to perform fitting, and C
the following formula is obtained: When the water cement is larger, the concrete
W W compactness decreases. Reduced water cement ratio,
 b  129.6( ) 2  120.18( )  34.125 (2) cement concrete flexural strength will reduce gradually,
C C based on the analysis of the stress of the concrete
trabecular bend test, presumably because the trabecular

3
E3S Web of Conferences 283, 01016 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202128301016
ICCAUE 2021

bending test of concrete at the bottom of the tensile stress

in the largest part of trabecular line position, maximum
stress area is linear distribution, the maximum stress zone
is the probability of cement mortar, aggregate interface
vulnerabilities are relatively small, As the water-cement
ratio increases, due to the reduction of free water after
hydration, the cement slurry itself tends to be compacted,
which increases the bearing capacity in the maximum
stress area of the trabecular specimen and ultimately
increases the bending and tensile strength of the
measured specimen.

5 Conclusion
In this experiment, the influence of water-cement ratio on
concrete performance is studied, and the change of
concrete performance is analyzed by changing the
water-cement ratio of concrete, and the change
relationship between water-cement ratio and concrete
strength is established. The main conclusions are as
follows:
(1) When the water-cement ratio of concrete is in the
range of 0.371~0.479, the concrete strength of the sample
decreases with the increase of water-cement ratio.
(2) The relationship between concrete strength and
water-cement ratio obtained by fitting is as follows:
W W
 b  129.6( ) 2  120.18( )  34.125
C C
In the future research, we will increase the
multi-factor study of aggregate and sand rate, etc., to
describe their influence rules on concrete strength in a
more detailed manner.

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