What temperature
drop is required and
how much concrete
must be cooled?
B y Wa r d R . M a l i s c h
ts summertime in Atlanta
I and job documents specify a
maximum delivered con-
crete temperature. Whats
the most economical way to
produce concrete at that temperature?
To answer that question, you first
need to ask a few other questions.
Whats the specified temperature?
You have many more options in
delivering concrete at 70 to 75F
than you do if 60F is the target
temperature.
Whats the difference between the
temperatures of the concreting ma-
terials and specified concrete tem-
perature?
Are there any natural sources of cold
water near your plant, such as
mountain streams or deep wells?
How long is the cooling season in
your area? If its only one or two
months, you cant afford to put much
money into systems requiring high
capital costs unless youre supplying
concrete for a large-volume project.
What volume of concrete requires
cooling? Again, producing small vol-
umes of cooled concrete, say 500 cu-
bic yards or less, doesnt justify high
capital costs.
Do plant site conditions permit you
to use all of the cooling options?
Chiller systems supply cold water for
mixing water and possibly cooling
aggregates. But cooling aggregates
might require high site-preparation
expenses, especially if in-ground stor-
age of the cooled water isnt feasible.
Using coarse aggregate thats been doused with cold water can lower concrete temperature by 10
degrees. A solid stream instead of a spray minimizes cold waters contact with warm air.
Available cooling options
Once youve answered these ques-
tions, you can evaluate your options.
Some require little or no capital in-
vestment, while the capital cost for
others is significant.
Cooling aggregate by evaporation.
Because coarse aggregate makes up the
largest portion of concrete, reducing
aggregate temperature causes the
greatest reduction in concrete temper-
ature. Simply wetting stockpiles cools
them by evaporation, but theres a
limit to the amount of cooling that oc-
curs. Wet aggregates wont cool as
much in humid climates because less
evaporation takes place. However,
even at a wet-bulb temperature of 80F
and air temperature in the mid-90s,
evaporation can still cool aggregate
piles to around 84F. Thats enough to
lower the concrete temperature by
about 4 degrees. A 6-degree concrete
temperature reduction is probably
about the best you can expect from
evaporative cooling of aggregate alone.
Batching bagged or block ice. This
is one of the simplest and most eco-
nomical methods for cooling concrete
on pours less than 500 cubic yards, or
in areas where the cooling season is
short. If you buy the ice in preweighed
bags, use it to replace an equal weight
of mixing water.
Heres a sequence that has worked for
one producer. Put the ice in the truck
first, followed by two tons of coarse ag-
gregate to help grind up the ice. Add
some of the remaining mixing water,
but hold out about one-fourth of the
required amount. Next add cement,
sand, the rest of the coarse aggregate,
and the last of the mixing water.
Another alternative is buying block
ice and a crusher thats also equipped
with a conveyor for discharging the ice
into concrete trucks.
Ice cools concrete by cooling mixing
water and by taking out heat as it melts.
Each pound of ice takes 144 Btu out of
the concrete as it melts. Using ice to re-
place half of the water batched at air
temperature can drop concrete temper-
ature as much as 12 to 20 degrees.
There are limitations to this method,
however. It can be used only for dry-
batched transit-mixed concrete, and
the amount of ice that can be used is
limited by the water content of the
concrete. Thus, there may be condi-
tions under which the target tempera-
ture isnt reached by replacing all of
the mixing water with ice. You also
need a place to store the ice at the
plant, and adding it is labor intensive.
Chilling mixing water. You can chill
mix water with chillers that supply on-
ly cool water, or with chillers that also
serve as reverse-cycle heat pumps. The
latter units have another advantage:
They can be used to heat mixing water
for cold-weather conditions.
Chillers that cool are designed to
eject heat either to the air or to a water
source. Air systems are installed out-
doors, allowing heat to be easily eject-
ed into ambient air. Water systems
commonly use well water for the heat
sink, but can also use cooling towers.
All chillers require a refrigerant
typically R22and electricity to oper-
In plants with ice makers, some
insulated day tanks can deliver
more than 2,000 pounds of ice
per minute to the weigh hopper.
ate a compressor and controls. Be-
cause they use electricity, chiller oper-
ational costs vary with electrical rates.
In some areas, local utility companies
offer special incentive rates if chilling
systems run only during off-peak
hours. The desired water-temperature
drop also affects cost. Electrical cost
for reducing water temperature from
60 to 40F is about half that for re-
ducing it from 80 to 40F. Operating
costs for electricity alone normally
range from 4 to 12 per cubic yard of
concrete.
Whenever you use chilled water, be
sure that the water tank, piping, and
weigh batcher are well insulated. Oth-
erwise, heat from the plant will in-
crease water temperature and drive up
operating costs.
A chilled-water system designed to
take 55F well water down to 35F may
be able to drop the mix temperature 5
degrees. But if chilled mix water and
evaporative aggregate cooling dont
help you reach the target temperature,
other steps are needed.
Cooling aggregates with cold water.
Applying a solid stream of cold water
directly on a coarse aggregate stockpile
quickly brings aggregate temperature to
about 5 to 10 degrees above the cold
water temperature. Using 700 gallons of
water per minute, a 500-ton pile of
coarse aggregate can be cooled by more
than 25 degrees in less than 40 minutes.
Thats enough cooling to lower the
concrete temperature about 10 degrees.
Theres little capital expense if the wa-
ter is naturally occurringcool well wa-
ter or snow-melt creek water. Then you
need only a water pump and piping to
move the water to aggregate piles, a sys-
tem for directing streams of water onto
the piles, and a means for draining ex-
cess water from the piles. Any such sys-
tem would also need to meet local
process water discharge regulations.
When natural water temperature is-
nt low enough, water chilling equip-
ment is needed. Equipment require-
ments include:
Adequate water storage capacity
normally about one days total
chilled water demand
Fire-hose-type nozzles for wetting
down aggregate piles
High-volume pumps for moving
chilled water to the aggregate piles
A chilled-water system that consis-
tently produces 40F or colder water
A water distribution and drainage
system that complies with local
process-water discharge regulations.
Aggregate cooling requires large vol-
umes of chilled water, so adequate stor-
age capacity is needed. Producing 800
cubic yards of concrete cooled 12F dai-
ly might require 60,000 gallons of stor-
age capacity. Insulated, above-ground
steel tanks of that capacity could cost
twice as much as an insulated pit for
ground storage. But ground storage is-
nt feasible if the water table is too high
or bedrock is too near the surface.
In arid climates, cooling towers are
sometimes used to pre-cool water, but
because mechanical water chillers are
usually needed as an adjunct cooling
system, most producers opt for chillers
without cooling towers. And in cli-
mates that arent as dry, the mechani-
cal chillers supply all of the cooling
needs. Unit sizes are dictated by the
amount of cooling water needed. Us-
ing a combination of aggregate cooled
with chilled water and chilled mixing
water will reduce concrete tempera-
ture by 10 to 22 degrees.
Coarse aggregate cooling with
chilled air. You can cool coarse aggre-
gate by blowing mechanically chilled
air up through specially designed bins.
Capital costs are typically more than
those for stockpile cooling, but the
benefits include improved aggregate
temperature control, lower electrical
operating costs, and cooling to a much
lower temperature than that achieved
in stockpiles. For example, this method
can cool 34-inch aggregate to 35F and
112-inch aggregate to below freezing.
The chilled air can be produced by
exchanging the air with chilled water
or chilled glycol. Alternatively, a direct
exchanger uses the refrigerant directly
in the air exchanger. A central chiller is
normally used to produce chilled mix
water while also cooling the chilled air.
Specially selected blowers achieve the
proper volume and pressure for the
chilled air thats blown through the
bins. The same air exchanger-blower
combinations can heat aggregates in
the winter when coupled with a water
heater heat source.
Chilled-air coarse aggregate cooling
is an economical option when large
volumes of concrete must be cooled
and stockpile cooling isnt practical.
Its also cost effective when required
concrete temperatures are lower than
can be achieved with stockpile cooling
using chilled water.
Sand cooling with chilled air. Sand
can now be effectively cooled as it
flows through a rotating drum along
with cooled air. The rotary drum for
this patented process is similar to dri-
ers used in asphalt plants, with special
flighting, retention time, and breach-
ing for entering and exiting air.
Sand can be cooled to 35F with this
system. Although sand coolers are
more efficient and have a lower capital
cost than ice production plants, they
always cost more than coarse aggregate
cooling. Thus their use is generally
considered only after coarse aggregate
cooling is already in use.
By adding a burner to the drum,
sand coolers can also be used as sand
heaters during cold weather.
How a water-source heat pump works
Vented storage tank
2" spray foam
insulation with sealer
Thermostat indicator
Batching pump
Freshwater in Discharge water out
This heat-pump system includes several parallel-connected modules that can be removed or added
quickly to adjust cooling capacity or to replace a failed module.
Cooling with ice makers. Large-vol-
ume cooling needs can often be met
most economically by making ice at
the concrete plant and adding it at the
mixer drum. Use it as a direct substi-
tute for batched water on a pound-for-
pound basis. Most ice makers for con-
crete cooling produce flake ice (about
1
1 6-inch thick), but ice makers that
produce plate ice (about 18-inch thick)
have sometimes been used when
longer concrete mixing times allow
this thicker ice to completely melt.
Flake ice makers produce ice contin-
uously with individual capacities up to
55 tons per day. The ice maker feeds a
refrigerated, insulated storage bin that
is sized based on the amount of ice
used and the pour schedule. The bin
also contains an ice rake used in the
discharge cycle. Storage capacities can
range from 12 tons to more than 250
tons per bin-rake system. When ice is
needed, the rake automatically dis-
charges ice from the storage bin to a
pneumatic- or screw-conveyor system
that delivers it to a live-bottom, insu-
lated day tank located above the batch-
plant weigh hopper. Day tanks can de-
liver more than 2,000 pounds of ice
per minute to the weigh hopper.
Plate ice plants usually include insu-
lated but not refrigerated storage. Be-
cause of this, long-term storage isnt
feasible and the ice must be used more
quickly after its produced. In these
plants, there are two different ways of
adding ice to the mixer. Rakes or con-
veyors automatically move it from the
storage bin to a pneumatic- or screw-
conveyor system that takes it to a day
tank above the weigh hopper. Another
option is dispensing ice from storage
to a separate scale, then blowing it di-
rectly into the mixing drum. Such sys-
tems can deliver more than 1,000
pounds of ice per minute to the plant
weigh hopper or mixer drum.
As with bagged ice, flake or plate ice
has a high cooling capacity because it
absorbs large amounts of heat by melt-
ing. Concrete temperature reductions
up to 30 degrees are possible when all
of the batched mixing water is re-
placed by ice. The ice systems give
consistent cooling results starting with
the first mix of the day, and interrup-
tions in concrete production dont
pose a problem since the ice stays cold
and free flowing in an insulated bin.
A significant capital investment is the
primary disadvantage of ice plants.
However, at the end of a project, all of
the equipment and most of the invest-
ment can be recovered by moving it to
a new site. Buying and installing a flake
ice maker system with a nominal capac-
ity of 10 tons per day, a 12-ton storage
bin, a 2-ton day tank, and the required
conveying systems will cost about
$300,000, depending on the length and
complexity of the external conveying
system. The cost per ton of production
drops dramatically for larger ice plants.
Liquid nitrogen cooling. Injection
with liquid nitrogen can cool concrete
to the very low temperatures some-
times required for base mats and other
mass-concrete pours. This cooling sys-
tem will work for central-mixed con-
crete, but for high-production plants,
cooling capacity is usually limited to 3
to 5F. Additional cooling is accom-
plished in truck mixers, using hydrauli-
cally operated arms to move a nitrogen
lance into the trucks charging hopper.
On one project, 112 minutes of injection
at the central mixer was followed by
several more minutes at remote truck-
cooling stations. Needed additional in-
jection time ranged from seven minutes
during the heat of the day to a more
typical two to three minutes.
Even for large-volume pours exceed-
ing 10,000 cubic yards, costs for liquid
nitrogen alone will be 30 to 55 to
cool a cubic yard 1 degree. The nitro-
gen tank, cooling stations, and labor
can cost an additional $20,000 to
$60,000 per cooling season.
Whatever your choice of cooling
method, remember to follow proper
hot-weather concreting practices. Use
admixtures and supplementary ce-
menting materials when needed to
control setting time. Paint trucks a
light color to reduce heat gain from
solar radiation, and schedule trucks to
avoid long waits at the jobsite.
References
1. Cooled Concrete Controls Cracking
for Base Mat Pour,Concrete Construc-
tion, November 1988, pp. 1032-1033.
2. Michael Lee, Economical Cooling
of Hot-Weather Concrete, Concrete
C o n s t r u c t i o n , September 1989, pp.
791-796.
3. Anne Smith, Water-Source Heat
Pump Economically Controls Concrete
Temperature, Concrete Construc-
tion, February 1990, pp. 234-236.
PUBLICATION #J970317
Copyright 1997, The Aberdeen Group
All rights reserved