9.

Tests on Materials
 Quality Control in 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

 1. Quality Control Before Concreting

■ This stage of quality control consists of two steps.

– Checking of specification requirements

– Control test on concrete ingredients (i.e. on cement, aggregate &

water)
 Cement
 Quality of cement is ascertained by making compressive strength
tests on cement cubes.
 However for effective control cement:
– Should be tested initially once for each source and subsequently
once for every two months
– Should be protected from moisture
– Should be retested after 3 months of storage, if long storage in
unavoidable
– Should be rejected if large lump are found in cement bags.
 Portland cements shall conform to the requirements of AASHTO
M85 (ASTM Cl50) and

 Blended hydraulic cements shall conform to the requirements of

AASHTO M240 (ASTM C595) or ASTM Cl157.

 Low-alkali cements conforming to the requirements of AASHTO M85

(ASTM Cl50) shall be used when specified in the contract documents
or when ordered by engineers as a condition of use for aggregates of
limited alkali-silica reactivity
 Aggregate
 Aggregates should confirm to specified values as per standard specification.

 The quality of concrete is affected by different physical and mechanical properties of aggregate, i.e.

shape, grading, durability, specific gravity and water absorption etc.

 These properties of aggregated should be tested before using it for concrete production.

 The quantity of deleterious materials and organic impurities should also be tested.

 For effective control aggregates:

– Are required to be tested once initially for approval of source

– Should subsequently be tested once or twice daily for moisture content and allowance should be

made for moisture content of aggregates.

Generally, aggregate should be
 Strong, durable and granular
 Hard with minimum abrasion value
 Well graded
 Not containing flaky and elongated materials
 Free from clay and silt
 Not containing organic materials
 Size depends on thickness of concrete members, specification and design
requirement
 Water
 The quality of water should be checked for the requirements as specified in
respective standard.

 Chemical analysis shall be conducted for approval of source.

 In case of suspended impurities, it is necessary to store water for some time to

allow them to settle down.

 In case of doubt concrete cubes made with this water are tested and average 28
days compressive strength of at least three cubes or cylinders or specified size,
prepared with water proposed to be used shall not be less than 90% of the
average strength of three similar concrete cubes prepared with distilled water.
 Water used in mixing and curing of concrete shall be subject to
approval and shall be reasonably clean and free of oil, salt, acid, alkali,
sugar, vegetable, or other injurious substances.

 Water shall be tested in accordance with, and shall meet the

requirements of AASHTO T26.

 Water should be potable quality to use without tests

 Where source of water is relatively shallow, an intake shall be enclosed

to exclude silt, mud, grass, or other foreign materials.
 Air-Entraining and Chemical Admixtures
 Air-entraining admixtures shall conform to the requirements of
AASHTO M154 (ASTM C260).

 Chemical admixtures shall conform to the requirements of AASHTO

M194 (ASTM494/C494M).
 Mineral Admixtures
 Mineral admixtures in concrete shall conform to the following
requirements

 Fly ash pozzolans and calcined natural pozzolans - AASHTO

M295 (ASTM C618)

 Ground granulated blast-furnace slag- AASHTO M302 (ASTM

C989)

 Silica fume-AASHTO M307 (ASTM C1240)

 2. Quality Control During Concreting
 Careful supervision during concrete manufacture is necessary for all
concreting operations such as batching, mixing, transporting, laying,
compacting and curing.

 The concrete mix should be designed in the laboratory with the

materials to be used on site.

 As far as possible concrete should be batched by weight.

 If weight batching is not possible, then volume batching may be

permitted through proper supervision in the presence of engineer in
charge.
 Slump test or compaction factor test should be performed to check workability of concrete.

 Care should be taken so that no segregation takes place during transportation of concrete.

 Concrete should not be dropped from a height of more than 1m, if the drop height exceeds 1
m, then chutes should be used.

 Concrete should be protected from hot and cold weather at early ages.

 Concreting should not be done at temperature below 4.50C and above 400

 In very hot weather water and aggregates should be cooled, and retarders of approved
quality can be used; In very cold weather water and aggregates should be heated, and
accelerators of approved quality can also be used.
 3. Quality Control After Construction
 Once the concrete is laid and compacted, compression tests are made on the
cubes
 The hardened concrete has to be checked for trueness in dimensions, shape and
sizes as per design specification.
 General surface appearance of concrete should also be checked.
 Dimensions are ascertained by different measurements.
 Reinforcement should have adequate concrete cover and if the reinforcement is
visible in part of a structure, the part should be rejected or necessary actions
should be taken accordingly.
 Concrete strength is normally to be ascertained from cube or cylinder samples
tested at 28 days.
 Chemical analysis of hardened concrete can be tested
 Concrete Slump Test
Slump is a measurement of concrete's workability, or fluidity.
It's an indirect measurement of concrete consistency or
stiffness.
A slump test is a method used to determine the consistency
of concrete. The consistency, or stiffness, indicates how
much water has been used in the mix.

15
 Concrete Slump Test
■ Apparatus
Slump cone, Scale for measurement, Tamping rod (steel)
■ Procedure
 The mold for the slump test is a frustum of a cone, 300 mm (12 in) of height. The base is 200
mm (8in) in diameter and it has a smaller opening at the top of 100 mm (4 in).
 The base is placed on a smooth surface and the container is filled with concrete in three layers,
whose workability is to be tested .
 Each layer is tamped 25 times with a standard 16 mm (5/8 in) diameter steel rod, rounded at the
end.
 When the mold is completely filled with concrete, the top surface is struck off (leveled with mold
top opening) by means of screening and rolling motion of the tamping rod.

16
 Concrete Slump Test
 The mold must be firmly held against its base during the entire operation so that
it could not move due to the pouring of concrete and this can be done by means
of handles or foot - rests brazed to the mold.
 Immediately after filling is completed and the concrete is leveled, the cone is
slowly and carefully lifted vertically, an unsupported concrete will now slump.
■ The decrease in the height of the center of the slumped concrete is called slump.
■ The slump is measured by placing the cone just besides the slump concrete and
the tamping rod is placed over the cone so that it should also come over the area
of slumped concrete.
■ The decrease in height of concrete to that of mould is noted with scale. (usually
measured to the nearest 5 mm (1/4 in).

17
Concrete Slump Test

18
 Types of Slump
True Slump
In a true slump the concrete simply subsides, keeping
more or less to shape
This is the only slump which is used in various tests.

Collapse Slump
 In a collapse slump the concrete collapses completely.
A collapse slump will generally mean that the mix is too
wet or that it is a high workability mix, for which slump
test is not appropriate.

Shear Slump
 In a shear slump the top portion of the concrete
shears off and slips sideways.
 OR If one-half of the cone slides down an inclined
plane, the slump is said to be a shear slump.
 Types of Slump
 If a shear or collapse slump is achieved, a fresh sample should be taken and the
test is repeated.
 If the shear slump persists, as may the case with harsh mixes, this is an indication
of lack of cohesion of the mix.
 Mixes of stiff consistence have a Zero slump, so that in the rather dry range no
variation can be detected between mixes of different workability.
 However , in a lean mix with a tendency to harshness, a true slump can easily
change to the shear slump type or even to collapse, and widely different values of
slump can be obtained in different samples from the same mix; thus, the slump
test is unreliable for lean mixes.

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 Compressive strength of Concrete
■ Concrete's compressive-strength mostly depends on the mix design.

■ But it is affected by several other factors. Such as mixing of concrete, placing of

concrete, curing of concrete as well as quality of concrete ingredients, so we
can't be assured that if we produce concrete as per mix-design

■ For knowing compressive-strength of concrete, we generally test concrete-cube

or concrete-cylinder at laboratory. These cubes/cylinders are made on
construction site.

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 Compressive Strength
 Cylinder : ASTM C470
P
 Cubes : British standard 150x150x150 mm3
 C
A
 Other sizes:

Cylinder: 100 × 200 or 150 × 300 mm

Cubes: 100 × 100 × 100 mm3 or

 The basic method of verifying that concrete complies with the specifications is to test
its strength using cubes or cylinders made from samples of fresh concrete.
 Concrete assumed as a brittle material
 For 150 mm cubes fill in 3 layers compact each layer 35
times.
 For 100 mm cubes fill in 3 layers compact each layer 25
times.

No need for capping.

 For 150 x 300 mm cylinder, fill in 3 layers compact
each layer 25 times.
 Capping to obtain a plane and smooth surface (thin
layer ≈ 3mm), using: Stiff Portland cement paste on
freshly cast concrete, or mixture of sulphur and
granular material, or high-strength gypsum plaster on
hardened concrete.
Factors Affecting Measured Compressive Strength

 Stress Distribution in Specimens

 Effect of L/d ratio

 Specimen Geometry

 Rate of Loading

 Moisture Content

 Temperature at Testing
Typical Failure Modes for Test Cubes: (a) Non-explosive; (b) explosive
Typical Failure Modes for Test Standard Cylinders:
a) Splitting; (b) Shear; (c) Splitting and shear (cone).
 2. Effect of L/d ratio

 The standard cylinder has a length to diameter ratio of 2.0

 If L/D ratio is other than 2.0 a correction factor must be applied to count for the
restrainment effect of the platens

Reference Cylinder : L/D =2

Strength (L/D) = C.F x Strength (L/D=2)
3. Specimen Geometry
 Different geometries for a concrete specimen can be used: Prisms, Cubes, and
cylinders.
 As stated before, cube are more confined by the platens thus have higher
strength than cylinder made of the same concrete. It has been found that
c=1.25 cyl .
 As specimen size increases, strength decreases.
4. Rate of Loading
 Higher rate of lading  higher strength.

5. Moisture Content
 Standards require testing of concrete in SSD conditions (ASTM C39).

6. Temperature at Testing
 Higher Temperature  lower strength
 Tensile strength of Concrete:
A. Direct Tensile: No standard Test
B. Indirect Tensile:

A. Splitting Tension Test.

The tensile strength of concrete is approximately equal to 10% of its compressive

strength.
 B. Flexural strength
f :

 The test is useful since most concrete

members is loaded in bending rather than in
axial tension. Thus, it represents the concrete
MC
 
property of interest. f is calculated as: I

This test is mostly used for quality control of highways and

airport runways.
It gives more useful information than do compression tests.

Flexural strength affected by:

- Specimen Size   strength 
- Temperature: Same as in compression.
 REBOUND HAMMER TEST
 Rebound hammer test is done to find out the compressive strength of concrete by

using rebound hammer.

 The rebound value is read from a graduated scale and is designated as the

rebound number or rebound index.

 The compressive strength can be read directly from the graph provided on the body

of the hammer.

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REBOUND HAMMER

35
 REBOUND HAMMER TEST
Procedure
1. Before commencement of a test, the rebound hammer should be tested against
the test anvil, to get reliable results, for which the manufacturer of the rebound
hammer indicates the range of readings on the anvil suitable for different types of
rebound hammer.
2. Apply light pressure on the plunger – it will release it from the locked position and
allow it to extend to the ready position for the test.
3. Press the plunger against the surface of the concrete, keeping the instrument
perpendicular to the test surface. Apply a gradual increase in pressure until the
hammer impacts. (Do not touch the button while depressing the plunger. Press the
button after impact, in case it is not convenient to note the rebound reading in that
position.)
4. Take the average of about 15 reading
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REBOUND HAMMER

37
 Core Sampling and Testing of Concrete
 Concrete cores are usually
cut by means of a rotary
cutting tool with diamond
bits.
 The core should then be
soaked in water, capped with
Cement paste to make its
ends plane, parallel, at right
angle
 Core Sampling and Testing of Concrete
 The core sample should be tested in compression in a moist
condition as per BS 1881: Part 4: 1970 or ASTM C 42-77
The core samples can also be used for the following:
 Strength and density determination
 Depth of carbonation of concrete
 Chemical analysis
 Water/gas permeability
 Petrographic analysis
 ASHTO Chloride permeability test
Carbonation Depth Measurement Test
 This NDT is used to determine the depth of

concrete affected due to combined attack of

atmospheric carbon dioxide and moisture causing

a reduction in level of alkalinity of concrete, and

reinforcement may suffer from corrosion as a

result
The End of the Course

Thank you