workability segeration and bleeding of freshly mixed concrete.docVIP

Lecture No. 18 19 Subject: Properties of Plastic Concrete Objectives of Lecture: To explain the properties of plastic concrete, i.e. workability, and segregation bleeding of freshly mixed concrete Workability Workability of concrete is defined in various ways as follows: ASTM C 125 defines workability as the property determining the effort required to manipulate a freshly mixed quantity of concrete with minimum loss of homogeneity. The term “manipulate” includes the early-age operations of placing, compacting, and finishing The workability is also defined as the ease with which a freshly mixed concrete can be properly compacted and also that it can be transported, placed, and finished The strict definition of workability is the amount of useful internal work, against the internal friction between the individual particles in the concrete, necessary to produce full compaction Workability of a concrete is a composite property with at least two main components, as follows: “Consistency”- indicates the mobility or flowability of freshly mixed concrete “Cohesiveness”- indicates the water-holding capacity (the opposite of bleeding) and the coarse aggregate-holding capacity (the opposite of segregation) Significance of workability A workable concrete allows full compaction using a reasonable amount of work. This helps in achieving maximum possible density (i.e. minimum possible voids) of concrete, which results in more strength and durability of concrete The following figure shows how significantly the density of concrete having same materials and proportions affects the strength of concrete As shown in the above figure, 5% of voids (i.e. 5% of decrease in density due to lack of proper compaction due to insufficient workability) can lower the strength as much as 30% Workability measurements Following tests are commonly used for measuring workability of concrete: 1. Slump test – most universally used test, which mea