Assessment of methods to estimate the characteristic concrete compressive strength in existing structures from core test results

Abstract

This paper is motivated because of the absence in Cuban standards of a method to estimate the characteristic concrete compressive strength in existing structures from core test results. The state of the art on the subject is established and the results of core compressive strengths of 15 reinforced concrete structures were used to assess the different methods found on the literature. The results show a large dispersion on the values obtained by the different methods. Finally a comparison of these values it’s made, the average differences between the  methods are quantified and a criteria about the sensitivity of the methods to the concrete batch characteristics is defined.