Experimental study on Portland cement pervious concrete mechanical and hydrological properties

• The average water permeability coefficient of PCPC was found 0.021 m/s.
• Smaller aggregate size produces a higher compressive strength in PCPC.
• Linear regression equations were developed for the compressive strength of PCPC.

Pervious concrete layer is one of the effective concrete pavement mixes to address a number of important environmental issues, such as recharging groundwater and reducing storm water runoff. Portland Cement Pervious Concrete (PCPC) is produced by eliminating most or all of the fine aggregate in the mix, which allows interconnected void spaces to be formed in the hardened matrix. These interconnected void spaces allow the concrete to transmit water at relatively high rates. Twenty-four PCPC mixtures were prepared and tested to address the effect of different size fractions of coarse aggregate, water-to-cement ratio, cement content, and coarse aggregate volume on the relationships between compressive strength, tensile strength, porosity, and permeability. The mixtures used in this study consisted of either one or two aggregate sizes. Linear regression relationships were developed to establish relationships between density and porosity, compressive strength and permeability, tensile strength and permeability, and compressive strength and porosity. The results showed that properties such as permeability, porosity, are significantly affected by using either one or two coarse aggregate sizes in all concrete mixtures. Furthermore, density can be an effective factor for predicting compressive strength, and porosity. In this study, the maximum compressive strength was 6.95 MPa, which obtained by using one aggregate size of 9.5 mm with 250 kg/m3 cement content. The obtained results showed that PCPC could be produced using one or two aggregate sizes at most.