AGGREGATE

Building Construction

Siddharth Bagga
SUSHANT SCHOOL OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE  
 INTRODUCTION

Aggregate is a general term applied to those inert materials which,

when bond together by cement, form concrete. Most of the aggregates
used are naturally occurring aggregates such as crushed rock, gravel
and sand. Artificial and processed aggregates maybe broken brick or
crushed air-cooled blast furnace slag.

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 CLASSIFICATION
Crushed Rock Sand
Gravel

Aggregate may be divided into two groups – Coarse Aggregate, and

Fine Aggregate.

Aggregates less than 4.75mm are Fine Aggregates, while those more
than 4.75mm in size are Coarse Aggregates.

For large and important works, it has become usual to separate the
coarse aggregate also into two or more sizes and these fractions are
kept separate until the proper quantity of eachblast
has been weighed
furnace slag out
Broken Brick
of a batch of concrete.

All-in aggregate, that is to say, aggregate as it comes from the pit or

river bed is sometimes used for unimportant works.

Fine aggregate Coarse Aggregate

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BASIC MANUFACTURING METHOD

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 QUALITY OF AGGREGATE

Aggregate should be chemically inert, strong hard, durable, of limited

porosity, free from adherent coatings, clay lumps, coal and coal
residues and should contain no organic or other admixture that my
cause corrosion of the reinforcement or impair the strength or
durability of the concrete.

Strength – The strength of concrete depends upon the strength

of aggregate. Granite aggregate provides greater strength than pumice
or burnt clay aggregate.

Granite aggregate Pumice aggregate

Size – The size of coarse aggregate used depends upon the nature of
work. The coarse aggregate must be small enough to enable it to be
worked between and around all reinforcements and into all corners of
the work.

For RCC work, the maximum size of aggregate is limited from 20

to 25mm.

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 Shape – The course aggregates may have three shapes – rounded
irregular and angular. For a concrete of a given workability, rounded
aggregate requires least water-cement ratio, while angular aggregate
requires highest water-cement ratio. The particle shape is thus very
important, since the water cement ratio governs greatly the strength of
concrete.

Rounded Angular Irregular

Surface – In a similar way a concrete made with aggregates of

rough surface is stronger.

Grading – Grading of aggregates greatly affects strength and

imperviousness of the concrete. Grading refers to the determination of
the particle-size distribution for aggregate. If the coarse and fine
aggregates are well graded, the percentage of void is considerably
reduced. The voids of fine aggregate are filled up by cement and those
of the coarse aggregate are filled up by mortar, consisting sand cement
and water.

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 COARSE AGGREGATE
Composition and Uses

The material retained on 4.75mm sieve is termed as coarse aggregate.

Crushed stone and natural gravel are the common materials used as
coarse aggregates for concrete.

Coarse aggregates are obtained from crushing various types of granites,

schist, gneiss, crystalline hard lime stone and good quality sand stones.

When very high strength concrete is required, a very fine-grained

granite is perhaps the best aggregate. Coarse grained rocks make harsh
concrete, and need high proportion of sand and high water-cement
ratio to get reasonable workability.

Harder types of sand stones having fine grained texture, are suitable as
coarse aggregate, but softer varieties should be used with caution.

Concrete made with sandstone aggregate gives trouble due to

cracking, because of high degree of shrinkage. Similarly, hard and
close-grained crystalline lime stones are very suitable for aggregate, is
cheap, but should be used only in plain concrete.

Blast furnace slag, coal ashes, coke-breeze etc., may also be used as
aggregates to obtain light weight and insulating concrete of low
strength.

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 FINE AGGREGATE
Composition and Uses

The material smaller than 4.75mm size is called fine aggregate. Natural
sands are generally used as fine aggregate. Sand may be obtained from
pits, river, lake or sea shore.

When obtained from pits, it should be washed to free it from clay and
slit.

Sea shore sand may contain chlorides which may cause efflorescence,
and may cause corrosion of reinforcement. Hence, it should be
thoroughly washed before use.

If river sand contains impurities like mud etc., it should be washed

properly.

Angular grained sand produces good and strong concrete, because it

has good interlocking property, while round grained particles of sand
do not afford such interlocking.