Cement Concrete as

Construction Material
(31/07/2014)
CONTENTS
1. Background
2. Components of Concrete
3. Strength development
4. Classification of concrete
5. Advantages and disadvantages
6. Concept of quality control

Background

Concrete is the most widely used man-made
construction material.
o Do you agree? Is it possible to quantify?

How concrete is obtained? What causes

hardening?

What is the role of cement water paste?

Which are all the characteristics of concrete
concern for the civil engineers?

How to ensure good performance of concrete?

Components of concrete

Hardened concrete can be considered to have
three distinct phases:
o the hardened cement paste (HCP) or matrix.
o the aggregate, and
o the interfacial or transition zone (TZ) between
the HCP and the aggregate.

[Source: http://www.cee.mtu.edu/~krpeters/]

These three phases can also have sub-phases.

Constituents of concrete
o Air (0 -3 %)
o Aggregate (60 70%)
 Fine aggregate (20-30%)
 Coarse aggregate (40-50%)

o Hydrated cement paste (20-35%)

 Cement (14-21%)
 Water (7-15%)

Strength development

The transformation of fresh concrete to
hardened concrete takes places in the three
stages: (i) fresh stage, (ii) transition stage, and
(iii) hardened stage.
o Fresh stage: Concrete is plastic, which is

workable and capable of being moulded.

o Transition stage: The ability to work with the
concrete reduces and the process of setting
begins. The excess water evaporates along with
heat evolution, and its strength slowly develops.
o Hardened stage: Concrete becomes stiff and
gains enough strength to support a load.

The strength development of concrete depends

on
o
o
o
o
o
o
o

age

water-cement ratio
air content
cement type
aggregate type
paste aggregate bond
curing and environmental conditions.

Classification of concrete

Classifications can be made based on
o Method of specification
 Prescriptive specifications: Nominal mix
 Performance oriented specifications: Designed
mix concrete.

o Level of control exercised

 Controlled concrete
 Ordinary concrete

o Density
 Normal-weight concrete (24 kN/m3)
 Lightweight concrete (18 kN/m3)
 Heavy weight concrete (32 kN/m3)
o Strength
 Ordinary concrete (< 20 MPa)
 Standard concrete ( 20 - 40 MPa)
 High-strength concrete (40 - 80 MPa)

Grades of concrete: M5, M10, M15,

M20,..M80, Here, M stands for mix
and the number nn stands for characteristics
compressive strength of 150 mm work cubes at
28 days, expressed in MPa.
o Why 28th day after casting?

Advantages and disadvantages

Concrete as a construction material has the
following advantages:
o It is economical in the long run as compared to
other engineering materials.
o It possesses high compressive strength, and the
corrosive and weathering effects are minimal.
o The green concrete can be easily handled and
moulded into any shape or size according to
specifications.
o It is strong in compression and has unlimited
structural applications in combination with steel
reinforcement.
o Concrete can even be sprayed on and filled into
fine cracks for repairs by guniting process.
o The concrete can be pumped and hence it can
be laid in the difficult positions also.
o It is durable and fire resistant and requires very
little maintenance.


Disadvantages of concrete are:

o It has low tensile strength and hence cracks
easily.
o Fresh concrete shrinks on drying and hardened
concrete expands on wetting. Provision for
contraction joints has to be made to avoid the
development of cracks due to during shrinkage
and moisture movement.
o Concrete expands and contracts with the
changes in temperature. Hence, expansion
joints have to be provided to avoid the
formation of cracks due to thermal movement.
o Concrete under sustained loading undergoes
creep resulting in the reduction of prestress in
the prestressed concrete construction.
o Concrete is not entirely impervious to moisture
and contains soluble salts which may cause
efflorescence.
o Concrete is liable to disintegrate by alkali and
sulphate attack.
o The lack of ductility inherent in concrete as a
material is disadvantageous with respect to
earthquake resistant design.

Concept of quality control

Concrete, generally manufacture at the site, is likely
to have variability of strength from batch to batch
also within the batch.

These variations are may be due to one or
combination of many or all of the following:
o Variation in the quality of ingredient materials
o Variation in mix proportion due to the batching
process
o Variation in the quality of batching and mixing
equipment available
o The quality of overall workmanship and super
vision at the site, and
o The variation due to sampling and testing of
concrete specimens.

The quality control of concrete is to reduce this
variation and to produce concrete of uniform quality
consistent with specified minimum requirements.