Part 1: Concrete & Its Component

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 Components of Concrete
• Aggregates
– Fine Aggregates (Sand)
– Coarse Aggregates (Gravel)

• Paste
– Cement
– Water
– Supplementary Cementing Materials (fly ash, silica fumes, GGBFS)
– Admixtures

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CEMENT

Portland Cement is a fine powder that sets and harden by reacting chemically with water
and becomes the glue that holds aggregates together in concrete.

Physical Properties of Cement:

• Fineness: Affects the strength-gain properties especially up to 7 days’ age.

• Strength: A high water/cement ratio produces paste of high porosity and low strength.
• Soundness: Excess free lime or magnesia in cement results in ultimate expansion and
disintegration of concrete made with that cement.
• Stickiness: This pack set has no effect on the concrete-making properties of cement

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Types of Cement

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Other Types of Cement
• Type 1A, IIA, and IIIA, ASTM C 150 Air Entraining.

• Blended Cements, ASTM C 595 Consists of interground blends of clinker and fly ash, natural
or calcined pozzolans, or slag within the constituent percent
limits specified.

• Masonry, ASTM C 91 This type is used for plaster.

• White, ASTM C 150 Meets the requirements of Type I and/or Type III.

• Plastic and Gun Plastic Cement Is developed for Portland cement plaster and stucco.
Not recommended for concrete due to high amount of air
entrainment.

• Oil-Well API Spec.10 Consists of several classes and is deigned to meet high
pressure and temperature conditions encountered in oil-well
grouting.

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AGGREGATES
Approximately three-fourths of the volume of conventional concrete is occupied by aggregates consisting of
such materials as sand, gravel, crushed rock, or air-cooled blast furnace slag.

Purpose of Aggregates:

Aggregates in Fresh, Plastic

to achieve the desired mobility, plasticity, and freedom from segregation, all
Concrete
lumped under the general term “workability”.

important properties of hardened concrete such as volume stability, unit

Aggregates in Hardened
weight, resistance to destructive environment, strength, thermal properties
Concrete
and pavement slipperiness.

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AGGREGATES
Coarse Aggregate
Aggregate predominantly retained on the No. 4( 4.75 –mm) sieve
(Gravel)
Fine Aggregate (Sand) predominantly retained on the No. 200 (75-µm) sieve

Crushed Stone The product resulting from the artificial crushing of rocks, boulders, or large cobblestones.

Crushed Gravel The product resulting from the artificial crushing of gravel with a specified minimum percentage of
fragment having one or more faces resulting from fracture.

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Aggregate Properties

Grading (ASTM C136)

Fineness Modulus
Specific Gravity (ASTM 127/128)
Absorption
Bulk Density (Unit Weight) (ASTM C29)
Surface Texture and Particle Shape (ASTM D 3398/4791)
Abrasion & Impact Resistance (ASTM C131)
Soundness (ASTM C88)

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Grading
It is the distribution of particles sizes present in an aggregate. (ASTM C 136, Sieve Analysis of
Fine and Coarse Aggregates)

Aggregates having a smooth grading

curve and neither a deficiency nor
excess of any particle size will generally
produce mixtures with fewer voids
between particles.
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 Fineness Modulus
• Is an index of the fineness of an aggregate.
• The higher the FM, the coarser the aggregate
• Is calculated by adding the cumulative percentages by
mass retained of each of a specified series of sieves and
dividing the sum by 100
• Ideal FM for fine aggregates is 2.3 - 3.1

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Specific Gravity
• Used in mixture proportioning calculations to find the absolute
volume that a given mass of material will occupy in mixture.
• Most natural aggregates have specific gravities between 2.4
and 2.9.

Significance:
Differing specific gravities will cause the yield or volume of
concrete to increase or decrease if batch remain constant.

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Absorption
A measure of the total pore volume accessible to water
and is usually calculated using the results from a specific
gravity determination.

Absorption for normal weight aggregate: 0 to 8%

Significance:
For adjusting batch weights of ingredients for concrete
since any excess water in the aggregates will be
incorporated in the cement paste and give it a higher
water/cement ratio than expected.

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Moisture Conditions of An Aggregate

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Bulk Density (Unit Weight)
▪ Used in estimating quantities of materials and in some mix
proportioning calculations.
▪ Affects the concrete behavior: mix design, workability, and density.

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Surface Texture and Particle Shape
Surface Texture
The degree of roughness, or irregularity of the aggregate particle shape.
Rough, granular, crystalline, smooth, glassy.

Particle Shape
Roundness - Refers to the relative sharpness or angularity of the particle edges and corners.
Sphericity - A measure of whether the particle is compact in shape being close to sphere or
cube, flat(disk-like) or elongated (needle-like).

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Significance of Particle Shape and Surface Texture
• Influences the workability of freshly mixed concrete and the strength of
hardened concrete.
• Angular rough sands will require more mixing water in concrete than in
rounded smooth fine aggregates to obtain the same level of slump or
workability , with other factors being equal.
• Rounded particles result in lower strength than crushed aggregates. The
rougher the surface of the aggregate and the greater the area in contact
with the cement paste, the stronger the concrete will be.

• In mixtures where coarse aggregate bond is critical, angular-cubical

shaped coarse aggregate will generally give better strengths than either
rounded smooth aggregates or those with a large proportion of flat or
elongated pieces.

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Standard Test Method for Resistance to Degradation of small sized Coarse
Aggregates by Abrasion and Impact in the Los Angeles Machine (ASTM C131)
• The ability to resist being worn away by rubbing and friction, or shuttering upon impact.

• A measure of aggregate quality and resistance to degradation due to handling, stockpiling and
mixing.

Significance:
• This test has been widely used as an indicator of the relative quality or competence of various
sources of aggregates having similar mineral composition.

Los Angeles Abrasion

Machine

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Soundness
– Ability of aggregate to withstand the aggressive actions,
particularly those due to weather, to which the concrete containing
it might be exposed.

– Depends upon the porosity or total pore volume of the aggregate

Before Soundness Test After Soundness Test

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WATER
• Mixing and curing water should be reasonably clean and free from
objectionable quantities of organic matter, silt, and salts.

• ASTM C1602, Standard Specification for Mixing Water Used in the

Production of Hydraulic Cement Concrete

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ADMIXTURES
• Are ingredients in concrete other than hydraulic cement, supplementary cementitious
materials, water, aggregates, and fiber reinforcement that are added to the mixture
immediately before or during mixing.

• Reasons to use chemical admixtures:

1. To achieve certain properties in concrete more effectively than by other means.
2. To maintain the quality of concrete during the stages of mixing, transporting,
placing, finishing and curing.
3. To overcome certain emergencies during concreting operations; and
4. Economy.

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Concrete Admixture by Classification (ASTM C494)
Type
A Water reducer, Type A
B Retarding admixtures, Type B
C Accelerators, Type C
D Water reducer and retarder, Type D
E Water reducer and accelerator, Type E
F Water reducer-high range, Type F
G Water reducer-high range and retarder,
Superplasticizers/ Superplasticizer &
Retarder
Desired Effect
Reduce water content at least 5%
Retard setting time
Accelerate setting and early strength
development
Reduce water content (minimum 5%) and
retard set
Reduce water content (minimum 5%) and
accelerate set
Reduce water content
Reduce water content (minimum 12%) and
retard set
Increase flowability of concrete. Reduce
water-cement ratio. Referred to as high
range water reducers or plasticizers.
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SUPPLEMENTARY CEMENTITIOUS MATERIALS
• Used in conjunction with portland or blended cement, and contribute to the properties
of concrete through hydraulic or pozzolanic activity or both.
Fly Ash
Fly ash is a byproduct from burning pulverized coal in electric power generating plants.
During combustion, mineral impurities in the coal (clay, feldspar, quartz, and shale) fuse
in suspension and float out of the combustion chamber with the exhaust gases

Silica Fume
is the ultrafine non-crystalline silica produced in electric arc furnaces as an
industrial by product of the production of silicon metals and ferrosilicon
alloys.

GGBFS
is obtained by quenching molten iron slag (a by-product of iron and steel-
making) from a blast furnace in water or steam, to produce a glassy, granular
product that is then dried and ground into a fine powder.
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 THANK YOU

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