10/30/2019 Quality Issues Associated with Readymix Concrete

Quality Issues Associated with Readymix

Concrete
July 29, 2014

Over a period of last 20 years RMC industry has made reasonable progress in India in terms of
volumes. Lot of efforts have been put to covert site mix concrete into readymix concrete and that
has given fruits.

In terms of QA/QC systems, quality of concrete produced we see many issues and unfortunately
the progress is not up to the expectations. This article explores the issues and possible solutions.

1. Low entry and exit barriers

As there are not much regulations on the Quality of people employed in RMC industry, any one
who is having sufficient money can invest and start. But here the problem is if this investor with
his team are not interested, dedicated to serving the industry with high quality concrete, then the
concrete from such plants will most likely be inferior in quality. Here in such cases unless there is
change in ATTITUDE of the top management the quality will be a neglected area.

2. QA/QC team

Any RMC company should have a good QA/QC team. It is the responsibility of the top
management to select ,train and build a strong QA/QC team so that they take care of Quality of
the finished product. For any RMC company with a long term ambition good QA/QC team is
mandatory.

3. Issues with workability

In ready mix concrete both producer and consumer is looking for right slump. If any one of the
two are not looking for right slump then it can trigger many other quality related problems. In
countries like OMAN,KSA many ready mix concrete producers follow the following intermediate
qc checks

A. Each truck is physically checked for slump ,temperature and recorded before the truck leaves
the plant.

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B. Each truck when it reaches site again the slump, temperature is measured, recorded,
communicated to plant.

In India some companies do not follow both A and B in total and hence we will have problems
mostly in such companies. For properly following both A and B , sufficiently trained technicians
are required both at Plant and site.

Why slump becomes a problem? some of the reasons are

1. Wrong initial judgment or not observing the concrete initially

2. Inconsistent raw materials with different properties compared to materials used in
trials/normally.
3. Error in admixture dosage
4. Error in water content due to improper moisture correction
5. Error in batching itself.
6. Changes in properties of cementitious materials. 7. Time elapsed after mixing

The solution to all the above issues will be to bring maximum awareness to QA/QC people on all
aspects of quality control such as Forward, intermediate and Retrospective controls. We need to
know the top management should invest maximum time and required money in training QA/QC
people.

What are the measures to be taken if the slump is more?

If slump is more than required first check whether that is within the requirements of IS 4926?. If
not, we can just ask the truck to wait for say another 15 to 30 minutes and take slump again, if
then also slump is more and unacceptable then the concrete may be rejected. It is to be noted
that anybody can reject concrete but it requires lot of judgment ,experience to accept concrete. A
good concrete which appears to be just falling out of slump range should not be rejected on the
other hand an inferior quality concrete should not be put into use. We need to also know that cost
of using a bad concrete is much more than cost of rejection as the cost of subsequent testing
,time lost to prove the concrete right many times will be huge.

What happens in case of low slumps on field?

The lower slumps can be attributed to low initial slumps, quick loss of water from concrete due to
high evaporation rates(on high temperature days),very quick hydration rates due to elevated
temperatures, high speed rotation of transit mixer drums on the way to sites, delays in
transportation, inadequate dosage of admixture or unsuitable admixture with low slump retention,
quickly reacting cement etc. Low slump concrete having reasonable slumps can be rejuvenated
by re-dosing with chemical admixture. Proper care has to be taken while re-dosing by using right
amount of admixture, also mixing properly for a minimum of 3 to 4 minutes in order to ensure
uniform mixing . We also need to note that we should not do re dosing more than say 2 times as

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after that the concrete may not respond to give right fresh and hardened properties. It is also
necessary to note that re dosing has to be done within a maximum period of say 3 or4
hours(depending upon ambient conditions, grade of concrete and based on some experience or
data) after batching concrete. In case of high strength concretes, high performance concretes re
dosing trials need to be done to assess the time of re dosing and re dosing rate.

According to European Standard EN 206-1:2000 five classes of slump have been designated, as
tabulated below.

For a slump class S2 or S3 you could expect a measured slump (spot sample from initial
discharge) to fall within the range of 30 – 120mm and 80 – 180mm respectively, whereas for
target slumps of 80mm and 120mm, the ranges will be 40 – 130mm and 70 – 180mm
respectively.

The EN standards appear to be more practical on the slump deviation issues

4. Issues with strength of ready mix concrete

Strength is one of the most important parameters on which the quality of concrete is judged and
hence its fitness for purpose is agreed. The strength issues can occur in ready mix concrete due
to many reasons. The issues can be classified into the following categories as follows

A. Intrinsic strength issues……..which can be corrected only by some remedial

treatments.

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These are real problematic issues where the actual strength of concrete has become low or
unacceptable. Mostly here the ingredients and the process of production are responsible for the
results. Some of the reasons as we know for these are

a. Low quality cement / cementitious materials or any other ingredients

b. Vast changes in properties of cementitious materials compared to the properties during
reference trial mixes.
c. High water contents in mixes leading to big deviations in W/C ratio(can generally also
happen due to wrong moisture, absorption corrections or completely neglecting moisture content
on different aggregates)
d. Wrong batching of ingredients.
e. Improper mix design and selection of raw materials.

B. Apparent strength issues

These issues look as if they are real but they need investigation and most likely the actual
strength of concrete may be right, if other practices are followed properly during and after
concreting. The reasons for such strength issues can be

f. Improper sampling(not following internationally acceptable standard sampling procedures)

g. Not remixing the sample
h. Not applying mould oil to the cubes.
i. Not curing the concrete cubes in a proper way ,continuously.
j. Not calibrating the cube testing machine or a Erroneous testing machine.
k. Not placing the cube properly at centre of platen , during testing.
l. Not applying proper rate of loading as per standards.
m. Not making cubes in right way, as per standards

C. Post production strength issues.

These are strength problems that are created after producing concrete during transportation,
delivery, placing and even after placing. Like Intrinsic strength problems they are irreversible and
only some remedial treatments can help in making this concrete fit for purpose. Some reasons
that can be listed are

n. Improper and inadequate compaction.

o. Intermittent curing, inadequate curing.
p. Addition of water on site or during transportation.
q. Delayed use of concrete after long time, after batching.

q. Not following proper construction practices like providing construction, Expansion joints etc.

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A very good understanding of these issues and solutions help the QA/QC systems to manage
quality of concrete in a very effective way, also solve strength related issues in a proper way so
that justice is done both to RMC producer and customer.

5. Issues of Cracks

Plastic Shrinkage Cracking

It occurs within 1 to 8 hours after placing, when subjected to a very rapid loss of moisture caused
by a combination of factors, which include air and concrete temperatures, relative humidity and
wind velocity at the surface of the concrete. These factors can combine to cause high rates of
surface evaporation in either hot or cold weather.

Plastic Shrinkage Cracks

When moisture evaporates from the surface of freshly placed concrete faster than it is replaced by
bleed water, the surface concrete shrinks. A zero bleed concrete will shrink due to the restraint
provided by the concrete below the drying surface layer, tensile stresses develop in the weak,
stiffening plastic concrete, resulting in shallow cracks of varying depth which may form a random,
polygonal pattern, or may appear essentially parallel to one another as shown in pictures.

These cracks are often fairly wide at the surface. They range from 5 cm to a few m in length and
are spaced from 5 cm to as much as 3m apart. Plastic shrinkage cracks begin as shallow cracks
but can become full depth cracks.

Plastic Settlement Cracking

After initial placement, vibration and finishing concrete has tendency to continue to consolidate.
During this period, the plastic concrete may be locally restrained by reinforcing steel, earlier
placed hardened concrete or formwork. This local restraint may result in voids under the
obstruction and cracks above the obstruction. When associated with reinforcing steel, settlement
cracking increases with increasing bar size, increasing slump, and decreasing cover. The degree of
settlement cracking maybe intensified by insufficient vibration or by the use of leaking or highly
flexible forms.

It is important to note that plastic shrinkage and plastic settlement cracks occur after placement
of concrete and most of the times governed by external factors like ambient temperature,
humidity, wind velocity. Greater the rate of evaporation of bleed water or water from the body of
concrete greater is the tendency of concrete to crack. Both plastic shrinkage and plastic
settlement cracks are classified as non structural cracks and have no impact on the life /strength
of the structure. However as they can become passage for external agents like water, co2,
oxygen, chlorides etc they need to be closed at the earliest to prevent these agents affecting the
RCC structure and concrete itself.

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The preventive measures are

5.a. Use right slump concrete with reasonable bleeding and not very low slumps with very low
bleeding( Rate of evaporation should be lesser than rate of bleeding). This has to be decided
purely based on ambient conditions and really most of the times impractical

5.b. Most importantly use wind breakers, cover the freshly laid concrete with polythene sheet
,start curing with easiest method as early as possible just when the concrete has set or just prior
to concrete setting . Protection against moisture loss prior to setting is very important. This can
be achieved by spraying water using a pesticide sprayer or applying a evaporation retardant or a
curing compound.

5.c. Retamp or revibrate the concrete if cracks are observed just when the concrete is being
placed, finished. This is difficult but when rates of evaporations are very high ,this is one of the
important actions to be taken.

5.e. To prevent plastic settlement cracking apart from taking care of above methods ,we need
to avoid congestion of rebars; rigid design of forms; proper vibrating needle penetration;
provision of time interval between the placements of concrete in columns, deep beams, thick
slabs and beams (with advance pour planning). The use of the lowest possible slump, and an
increase in concrete cover will reduce settlement cracking.

Again many of the above, when can not be done, we can only focus on 5.b and 5.c.

So what should we do if these cracks occur?

Most of these cracks are said to be autogenously healing in nature.However a neat cement with
acrylic polymer/SBR polymer also mixed with non shrink grout additive can be used to fill up
these cracks. They can also be filled up with pre packed crack filling mortars .

It should be noted that the QA/QC people should be fully aware of the subject of cracks to
properly handle such common issues. It should be noted that the cracks issue is more to do with
external ambient conditions and cracks can be minimized/prevented to great extent by proper
construction practices at site. A proper understanding of these issues is very essential to site
Engineers who are involved in supervision of concrete quality on site as they are fully
responsible for minimizing/preventing such cracks. A proper perception on these issues is also
essential to stop unnecessary harassment to RMC QA/QC personnel as well as all other suppliers
,providing ingredients to concrete producers.

References
1. Quality issues in RMC,ppt by Mr Raj Pillai and V.R.Kowshika.
2. Manual of Ready-Mixed concrete by J.D.Dewar and R.Anders on

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3. QA/QC controls of RMC, ppt by Marcus Rappens Berger, UK

4. Understanding cracks, ppt by Gordon Bain,Australia.?

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