LECTURE – 3

CONCRETE

CE141 – CONSTRUCTION
MATERIALS AND TESTING
CONCRETE
WHAT IS CONCRETE?
 Construction material

 Mixture of portland cement, water, aggregates,

and in some cases, admixtures.

 The cement and water form a paste that hardens
and bonds the aggregates together.
 Often looked upon as “man made rock”.
 Versatile construction material, adaptable to a
wide
variety of agricultural and residential uses.
 Strong, durable, versatile, and economical.
CONCRETE
 Can be placed or molded into virtually any shape and
reproduce any surface texture.
 The most widely used construction material in the world.
 In the United States almost twice as much concrete is
used as all other construction materials combined.
 The ready-mix concrete producer has made concrete an
appropriate construction material for many applications.
Composition of concrete
 Water

 Aggregates

 Chemical admixtures

 Cement
WATER
 Good water is essential for quality concrete.
Should be good enough to drink--free

of trash, organic matter and excessive

chemicals and/or minerals.
 The strength and other properties of

concrete are highly dependent on the

amount of water and the WATER-CEMENT
RATIO
AGGREGATES
 Aggregates occupy 60 to 80 percent of the
volume of concrete.

 Sand, gravel and crushed stone are the

primary aggregates used.

 All aggregates must be essentially free

of silt and/or organic matter.
CHEMİCAL ADMİXTURES

 Materials in the form of powder or fluids that are added

to the concrete to give it certain characteristics not
obtainable with plain concrete mixes.

 In normal use, admixture

dosages are less than 5% by mass
of cement, and are added to the
concrete at the time of
batching/mixing.
CHEMİCAL ADMİXTURES

The most common types of admixtures are:

 Accelerators :
-Speed up the hydration (hardening) of the
concrete. - Typical materials used are CaCl2 and
NaCl.
 Acrylic retarders :
-Slow the hydration of concrete, and are used in
large or difficult pours.
-Typical retarder is table sugar, or sucrose
(C12H22O11).
CHEMICAL ADMIXTURES
 Water-reducing admixtures
-Increase the workability of plastic or "fresh"
concrete, allowing it be placed more easily, with less
consolidating effort.
-High-range water-reducing admixtures are a class of
water-reducing admixtures
– Increase workability
– Reduce the water content of a concrete.
– Improves its strength
and durability characteristics.
 REINFORCEMENT
 Concrete is:

Strong in compression, as the
aggregate efficiently carries the
compression load.
 Weak in tension as the cement
holding the aggregate in place can
crack, allowing the structure to
fail.
problems by adding either
 Reinforced concrete solves these
metal reinforcing bars, steel fibers,
glass fiber, or plastic fiber to carry tensile loads.
CEMENT
 Crystalline compound of calcium silicates and other
calcium compounds having hydraulic properties.
 Considered hydraulic because of their ability to set and
harden under or with excess water through the hydration
of the cement’s chemical compounds or minerals
CEMENT
 Uses
Main use is in the fabrication of concrete and mortars
 Modern uses
-Building (floors, beams, columns, roofing,
piles,
bricks, mortar, panels, plaster)
-Transport (roads, pathways, crossings,
bridges,
viaducts, tunnels, parking, etc.)
-Water (pipes, drains, canals, dams, tanks, pools, etc.)
-Civil (piers, docks, retaining walls,
silos,
warehousing, poles, pylons, fencing)
CEMENT
 HYDRAULIC CEMENTS:
 Hydraulic lime: Only used in specialized mortars.
Made from calcination of clay-rich limestones.

Natural cements: Misleadingly called Roman. It is

made from argillaceous limestones or interbedded
limestone and clay or shale, with few raw materials.
Because they were found to be inferior to portland, most
plants switched.
 Portland cement: Artificial cement. Made by the
mixing clinker with gypsum in a 95:5 ratio.
CEMENT
Portland-limestone cements: Large amounts (6% to
35%) of ground limestone have been added as a filler to
a portland cement base.

Blended cements: Mix of portland cement with one or

more SCM (supplementary cemetitious materials) like
pozzolanic additives.

Pozzolan-lime cements: Original Roman cements.

Only a small quantity is manufactured in the U.S. Mix
of pozzolans with lime.
CEMENT
 Masonry cements: Portland cement where other
materials have been added primarily to impart plasticity.

Aluminous cements: Limestones and bauxite are the

main raw materials. Used for refractory applications
(such as cementing furnace bricks) and certain
applications where rapid hardening is required. It is more
expensive than portland. There is only one producing
facility in the U.S.
Concrete production

 This process develops physical and chemical properties

like mechanical strength, low moisture permeability, and
chemical and volumetric stability.
A properly proportioned concrete mix will provide
 Mixing concrete
 Workability

 Curing
Mixing concrete

 Essential for
I. The production of uniform concrete,
II. High quality concrete.
 Equipment and methods should be capable
of effectively mixing
 Workability
 The ease with which freshly mixed concrete can be
placed and finished without segregation.
 Difficult to measure but ready-mix companies usually
have experience in determining the proper mix.
 Important to accurately describe what the concrete is to
be used for, and how it will be placed.
Concrete Mixers
 Concrete mixers with one cubic yard or
larger loading skips must be equipped
with:
– Mechanical device to clear skip of materials
– Guardrails installed on each side of the skip
Power Concrete Trowels
Power Concrete Trowels
Concrete Buggies
 Concrete buggy handles must not
extend beyond the wheels on
either side of the buggy.
Concrete Pumping System
 Discharge pipes must be provided with pipe supports
designed for 100 percent overload.
 Compressed air hoses must be provided with
positive
fail-safe joint connectors.
Tremie Sections
 Sections of tremie
and similar concrete
conveyances must be
secured with wire
rope (or equivalent
materials) in addition
to the regular
couplings or
connections.
Curing

Concrete that has been specified,
batched, mixed, placed, and finished but
can still be a failure if improperly or
inadequately cured.
 Usually the last step in a concrete
project and, unfortunately,
is often neglected even by
professionals.
Curing
 Curing has a major influence on the properties of
hardened concrete such as durability, strength,
water-tightness, wear resistance, volume
stability, and resistance to freezing and thawing.
 Proper concrete curing for agricultural and
residential applications involves keeping newly
placed concrete moist and avoiding temperature
extremes (above 90 F or below 50 F) for at
least three days.
 A seven-day (or longer) curing time is
recommended.
Curing
 The best curing method depends on:
– Cost,
– Application equipment required,
– Materials available,
– Size and shape of the concrete surface.
 Prevent the loss of the mixing water from concrete by
sealing the surface.
 Can be done by:
– Covering the concrete with impervious paper or
plastic sheets,
– Applying membrane-forming curing
compounds.
Curing
 Begin the curing as soon as the concrete has hardened
sufficiently to avoid erosion or other damage to the
freshly finished surface.
 Usually within one to two hours after placement and
finishing.
Properties of concrete

 Strength
 Elasticity
 Cracking
 Shrinkage cracking
 Tension cracking
 Strength
Concrete has relatively
 High compressive strength,
 Low tensile strength
 Fair to assume that a concrete sample's tensile strength is
about 10%-15% of its compressive strength
 The ultimate strength of concrete is influenced by
- water-cementitious ratio
-the design constituents
- the mixing
-placement
-curing methods
Elasticity
 Function of the modulus of elasticity of the aggregates
and the cement matrix and their relative proportions
 The American Concrete Institute allows the modulus of
elasticity to be calculated using the following equation:

where
wc = weight of concrete (pounds per cubic foot) and
where

f'c = compressive strength of concrete at 28 days (psi)

Cracking

 All concrete structures will crack to some extent.

 Cracks due to tensile stress induced by shrinkage or
stresses occurring during setting or use
 Shrinkage cracking
 Occur when concrete members undergo restrained
volumetric changes (shrinkage) as a result of either
drying, autogenous shrinkage or thermal effects.

 The number and width of shrinkage

cracks that develop are influenced by
-the amount of shrinkage that occurs
-the amount of restraint present
-the amount and spacing of reinforcement
provided.
Tension cracking

 Most common in concrete beams where a transversely

applied load will put one surface into compression and
the opposite surface into tension due to induced bending.
 The size and length of cracks is dependent on
- The magnitude of the bending moment
- The design of the reinforcing in the beam at the
point under consideration.
Concrete testing

Compression testing of a concrete cylinder

Same cylinder after failure

Assignment: DEADLINE IS ON
MAY 4
 Answer the following questions in not less than 200
words:
1. What is the composition of concrete?
2. What is the purpose of curing? Explain
3. What are the purposes of concrete admixtures? Explain