Plastics are nothing but synthetic organic high polymers. It is important to know the general outstanding properties of plastics to make best use of this an engineering material. It should also be noted that each plastic material has its own peculiar properties to suit the various uses. Hence the success of plastic as an engineering … Read more
Aggregates influence the properties of concrete/mortar such as water requirement, cohesiveness and workability of the concrete in plastic stage, while they influence strength, density, durability, permeability, surface finish and colour in hardened stage. Field Tests for Aggregate 1. Surface Moisture Content & Absorption The surface moisture in the aggregate, influences the water cement ratio, strength … Read more
Surface Index of Aggregates Surface index of aggregates is another way to represent the specific surface of aggregate. This method was suggested by Murdock. Murdock provided some empirical numbers to represent the specific surface of different aggregates grading (as shown in the table below). Surface Index Values for Single Graded Aggregate TABLE-1 Sieve Size Within … Read more
Plastic shrinkage cracking (as shown below) is caused by rapid drying of the concrete surface. They can occur at any time of the year, from cooler low-humidity weather conditions to, in particular, hot weather conditions involving any one or a combination of high temperature, low humidity and wind. These types of cracks occur while the … Read more
Quality Control of Concrete Construction Quality of concrete construction on site can be accomplished in three distinct stages as follow Quality control before concreting Quality control during concreting Quality control after construction Stage-1 (Quality Control Before Concreting) This stage of quality control consists of two steps. Checking of specification requirements regarding excavation, forms, reinforcement and … Read more
No single stone can satisfy all the below mentioned quality requirements. For example, strength and durability requirement contradicts ease of dressing requirement. Hence it is necessary that site engineer looks into the properties required for the intended work and selects the stone accordingly. Requirements of Good Building Stones The following are the quality requirements of … Read more
Honeycomb Repair in Concrete Surface Honeycomb and larger surface voids require procedures resembling those for typical concrete repairs. But there’s nothing typical about the recommended approaches to repairing these voids. They vary greatly. While repairing voids or honeycomb in concrete surface, the most common question that arises is what should be the thickness of the … Read more
Objective To determine the Flexural Strength of Concrete, which comes into play when a road slab with inadequate sub-grade support is subjected to wheel loads and / or there are volume changes due to temperature / shrinking. Reference Standards IS: 516-1959 – Methods of tests for strength of concrete Equipment & Apparatus Beam mould of size … Read more
Concrete structures which are subjected to freezing and thawing are likely to deteriorate earlier. Structures which are mostly affected under similar climatic conditions due to freezing and thawing are the exposed surfaces of the top 60 cm of walls, piers, parapets, cornices etc. the durability of such structures can be improved by adopting certain weather … Read more
Theory The bond strength is the measure of the effectiveness of the grip between concrete and steel and has no standard quantitative definition. In pull out tests on plain bars, the maximum load generally represents the bond strength that can be developed between concrete and steel. With plain bars the maximum load is not very … Read more