1. Testing of Concrete Admixtures

2. Destructive Testing Non Destructive Testing 1)Compression Test1) Surface hardness tests 2)The Flexural Strength of Concrete2) Rebound Hammer test 3)Tensile strength of Concrete3) Penetration and Pull out techniques 4) Dynamic or vibration tests 5) Combined methods 6) Radioactive and nuclear methods 7) Magnetic and electrical methods 8) Acoustic emission techniques 9) Surfaces Hardness Methods Testing of Concrete

3. Non Destructive Testing 1)Surface hardness tests: These are of indentation type, include the Williams testing pistol and impact hammers, and are used only for estimation of concrete strength. 2) Rebound test: The rebound hammer test measures the elastic rebound of concrete and is primarily used for estimation of concrete strength and for comparative investigations. 3) Penetration and Pull out techniques: These include the use of the Simbi hammer, Spit pins, the Windsor probe, and the pullout test. These measure the penetration and pullout resistance of concrete and are used for strength estimations, but they can also be used for comparative studies.

4. Non Destructive Testing 4) Dynamic or vibration tests: These include resonant frequency and mechanical sonic and ultrasonic pulse velocity methods. These are used to evaluate durability and uniformity of concrete and to estimate its strength and elastic properties. 5)Combined methods: The combined methods involving ultrasonic pulse velocity and rebound hammer have been used to estimate strength of concrete. 6) Radioactive and nuclear methods: These include the X-ray and Gamma- ray penetration tests for measurement of density and thickness of concrete. Also, the neutron scattering and neutron activation methods are used for moisture and cement content determination

5. Non Destructive Testing 7) Magnetic and electrical methods: The magnetic methods are primarily concerned with determining cover of reinforcement in concrete, whereas the electrical methods, including microwave absorption techniques, have been used to measure moisture content and thickness of concrete. 8)Acoustic emission techniques: These have been used to study the initiation and growth of cracks in concrete. 9) Surfaces Hardness Methods: The fact that concrete hardens with increase in age, the measure of hardness of surface may indicate the strength of concrete. Various methods and equipment's are devised to measure hardness of concrete surface. William testing pistol, Frank spring hammer, and Einbeck pendulum hammer are some of the devices for measuring surface hardness.

6. Admixture “Admixture is defined as a material, other than cement, water and aggregates, that is used as an ingredient of concrete and is added to the batch immediately before or during mixing. Additive is a material which is added at the time of grinding cement clinker at the cement factory.”  These days concrete is being used for wide varieties of purposes to make it suitable in different conditions. In these conditions ordinary concrete may fail to exhibit the required quality performance or durability. In such cases, admixture is used to modify the properties of ordinary concrete so as to make it more suitable for any situation.

7. Classification of admixtures : 1) Plasticizers. 2) Superplasticizers. 3) Retarders. 4) Accelerators. 5) Air-entraining Admixtures. 6) Pozzolanic or Mineral Admixtures. 7) Damp-proofing and Waterproofing Admixtures. 8) Gas forming Admixtures. 9) Air-detraining Admixtures. 10) Alkali-aggregate Expansion Inhibiting Admixtures. 11) Workability Admixtures. 12) Grouting Admixtures. 13) Corrosion Inhibiting Admixtures. 14) Bonding Admixtures. 15) Fungicidal, Germicidal. 16) Insecticidal Admixtures. 17) Colouring Admixtures.

8. 1) Plasticizers : The action of plasticizers is mainly to fluidify the mix and improve the workability of concrete, mortar or grout. The mechanisms that are involved could be explained in the following way: Dispersion : Portland cement, being in fine state of division, will have a tendency to flocculate in wet concrete. These flocculation entraps certain amount of water used in the mix and thereby all the water is not freely available to fluidify the mix. When plasticizers are used, they get adsorbed on the cement particles. The adsorption of charged polymer on the particles of cement creates particle-to- particle repulsive forces which overcome the attractive forces. This repulsive force is called Zeta Potential, which depends on the base, solid content, quantity of plasticizer used. The overall result is that the cement particles are deflocculated and dispersed. When cement particles are deflocculated, the water trapped inside the flocs gets released and now available to fluidify the mix.

9. When cement particles get flocculated there will be inter particle friction between particle to particle and floc to floc. But in the dispersed condition there is water in between the cement particle and hence the inter particle friction is reduced. Retarding Effect : It is mentioned earlier that plasticizer gets adsorbed on the surface of cement particles and form a thin sheath. This thin sheath inhibits the surface hydration reaction between water and cement as long as sufficient plasticizer molecules are available at the particle/solution interface. The quantity of available plasticizers will progressively decrease as the polymers become entrapped in hydration products

10. 2) Superplasticizers :  They are chemically different from normal plasticizers. Use of superplasticizers permit the reduction of water to the extent up to 30 per cent without reducing workability in contrast to the possible reduction up to 15 per cent in case of plasticizers.  The use of superplasticizer is practiced for production of flowing, self levelling, self compacting and for the production of high strength and high performance concrete.  The superplasticizers are more powerful as dispersing agents and they are high range water reducers. They are called High Range Water Reducers.  The superplasticizers also produce a homogeneous, cohesive concrete generally without any tendency for segregation and bleeding. Following are a few polymers which are commonly used as base for superplasticizers.

11.  Superplasticizers can produce: At the same w/c ratio much more workable concrete than the plain ones, For the same workability, it permits the use of lower w/c ratio, As a consequence of increased strength with lower w/c ratio, it also permits a reduction of cement content.  Some Plastisizer and Superplasticizers are; Sulphonated malanie-formaldehyde condensates (SMF), Sulphonated naphthalene-formaldehyde condensates (SNF), Modified lignosulphonates (MLS), Acrylic polymer based (AP), Copolymer of carboxylic acrylic acid with acrylic ester (CAE), Cross linked acrylic polymer (CLAP), Polycarboxylate ester (PC), Multicarboxylatethers (MCE)

12. 3) Retarders :  A retarder is an admixture that slows down the chemical process of hydration so that concrete remains plastic and workable for a longer time than concrete without the retarder.  Retarders are used to overcome the accelerating effect of high temperature on setting properties of concrete in hot weather concreting.  They are also used in grouting oil wells. Oil wells are sometimes taken upto a depth of about 6000 meter deep where the temperature may be about 200°C. For all these works cement grout is required to be in mobile condition for about 3 to 4 hours, even at that high temperature without getting set. Use of retarding agent is often used for such requirements.  Sometimes concrete may have to be placed in difficult conditions and delay may occur in transporting and placing. In ready mixed concrete practices, concrete is manufactured in central batching plant and transported over a long

13. -distance to the job sites which may take considerable time. In the above cases the setting of concrete will have to be retarded, so that concrete when finally placed and compacted is in perfect plastic state.  At normal temperatures addition of sugar 0.05 to 0.10 per cent have little effect on the rate of hydration, but if the quantity is increased to 0.2 per cent, hydration can be retarded to such an extent that final set may not take place for 72 hours or more.  Some commonly used Retarders are; calcium sulphate, gypsum, starches, cellulose products, sugars, acids or salts of acids, Skimmed milk powder (casein)

14.  Accelerating admixtures are added to concrete to increase the rate of early strength development in concrete to : Permit earlier removal of formwork; Reduce the required period of curing; Advance the time that a structure can be placed in service; Partially compensate for the retarding effect of low temperature during cold weather concreting; In the emergency repair work.  commonly used accelerator was calcium chloride. But, now a days it is not used. Instead, some of the soluble carbonates, silicates fluosilicates and some of the organic compounds such as triethenolamine are used.. 4) Accelerators :

15.  The recent studies have shown that calcium chloride is harmful for reinforced concrete and prestressed concrete.  Some of the accelerators produced these days are so powerful that it is possible to make the cement set into stone hard in a matter of five minutes are less. With the availability of such powerful accelerator, the under water concreting has become easy  Some of the modern commercial accelerating materials are Mc-Schnell OC, Mc-Schnell SDS, Mc-Torkrethilfe BE, MC-Torkrethilfe BE.

16. 5) Air-entraining Admixtures :  Air entrained concrete is made by mixing a small quantity of air entraining agent or by using air entraining cement. These air entraining agents incorporate millions of non-coalescing air bubbles, which will act as flexible ball bearings and will modify the properties of plastic concrete regarding workability, segregation, bleeding and finishing quality of concrete.  The following types of air entraining agents are used for making air entrained concrete. ( a ) Natural wood resins, ( b ) Animal and vegetable fats and oils, such as tallow, olive oil and their fatty acids such as stearic and oleic acids. ( c ) Various wetting agents such as alkali salts or sulphated and sulphonated organic compounds.

17. ( d ) Water soluble soaps of resin acids, and animal and vegetable fatty acids. ( e ) Miscellaneous materials such as the sodium salts of petroleum sulphonic acids, hydrogen peroxide and aluminium powder. affecting amount of air entrainment  The amount of air entrainment in a mix is affected by factors; (a ) The type and quantity of air entraining agent used. (b) Water/cement ratio of the mix. (c ) Type and grading of aggregate. (d) Mixing time. (e) The temperature. (f ) Type of cement. (g) Influence of compaction. (h) Admixtures other than air entraining agent used.

18.  Air entrainment will effect directly the following three properties of concrete: (a) Increased resistance to freezing and thawing. (b) Improvement in workability. (c) Reduction in strength. 6) Pozzolanic or Mineral Admixtures :  Pozzolanic materials are siliceous or siliceous and aluminous materials, which in themselves possess little or no cementitious value, but will, in finely divided form and in the presence of moisture, chemically react with calcium hydroxide liberated on hydration, at ordinary temperature, to form compounds, possessing cementitious properties.

19.  Pozzolanic materials can be divided into two groups: 1) Natural pozzolana and 2) Artificialpozzolana. 1)Natural Pozzolans a)Clay and Shales b)Opalinc Cherts c) Diatomaceous Earth d)Volcanic Tuffs and Pumicites. 2) Artificial Pozzolans a) Fly ash b) Blast Furnace Slag c) Silica Fume d) Rice Husk ash e) Metakaoline f) Surkhi.

20.  It has been demonstrated that the best pozzolans in optimum proportions mixed with Portland cement improves many qualities of concrete, such as: (a ) Lower the heat of hydration and thermal shrinkage; (b) Increase the water tightness; (c ) Reduce the alkali-aggregate reaction; (d ) Improve resistance to attack by sulphate soils and sea water; (e) Improve extensibility; (f ) Lower susceptibility to dissolution and leaching; (g) Improve workability; (h) Lower costs.  In India, the total production of fly ash is nearly as much as that of cement (75 million tons). But our utilization of fly ash is only about 5% of the production. Therefore, the use of fly ash must be popularized for more than one reasons

21. 7) Waterproofing Admixtures :  In practice one of the most important requirements of concrete is that it must be impervious to water under two conditions, firstly, when subjected to pressure of water on one side, secondly, to the absorption of surface water by capillary action.  Waterproofing admixtures may be obtained in powder, paste or liquid form and may consist of pore filling or water repellent materials. The chief materials in the pore filling class are silicate of soda, aluminium and zinc sulphates and aluminium and calcium chloride. These are chemically active pore fillers. In addition they also accelerate the setting time of concrete and thus render the concrete more impervious at early age.  Admixtures may contain butyl stearate, the action of which is similar to soaps, but it does not give frothing action. Butyl stearate is superior to soap as water repellent material in concrete.