Par t 1 of a
Air in
Concrete:
By Ken Hover
How Come and How Much?
A ir-entrained concrete is made
by adding a detergent (an air-
entraining admixture) to sta-
bilize air bubbles trapped during mix-
ing. In fresh concrete, the air bubbles
reduce the water demand of the con-
crete and make the mix stickier, which
helps to reduce segregation and reduces
bleeding when air content is around
3%. If the air content is higher, the in-
creased stickiness makes the concrete
more difficult to finish, and the bub-
bles can lead to blisters and delami-
nations on steel-troweled surfaces. As
the concrete hardens, the cement paste
sets around these bubbles, leaving bub-
ble-shaped voids in the hardened con-
crete.
A typical cubic yard of air-entrained
concrete has 5 to 15 billion of these
microscopic bubbles with a combined
volume of 4% to 8% of the total con-
crete volume. If for some reason you
had to paint the inside surface of all
of these air voids, you would need
enough paint to cover 10,000 to 20,000
square feet in a single cubic yard of
concrete!
CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGIES LABORATORIES
As air content increases, paste con-
tent, aggregate content, or both have to
decrease, and since paste, stone, and
sand are all stronger and denser than
air, a 1% increase in air content lowers
two-par t
series
compressive strength by 200 to 300 psi, keys to making concrete resistant to
and density drops by about 1%. damage from freezing and thawing of
Furthermore, the bubbles in the
fresh concrete are formed, trapped, and
lost in the mixing process, and the sur-
absorbed water.
The first key to frost resistance is
to select a durable aggregate; air en-
viving bubbles are then broken, squeezed, trainment cannot help when the aggre-
expanded, shaken, and floated during gate is cracked, porous, absorbent, or
placing, vibration, and finishing. Con- weak. When aggregate popouts are the
sequently the final air content in the problem, changing the aggregate—not
hardened concrete can be notoriously adding more air—may be the solution.
variable, difficult to predict, and tough The second key is to reduce the
to measure reliably. So why would any- concrete’s ability to absorb water while
body invite these potential difficulties providing sufficient resistance to the
by intentionally putting an air-entrain- pressure caused by expansion as inter-
ing admixture in the concrete? nal water freezes. This is done in ac-
cordance with the requirements of the
Why do we need air? ACI 318 Building Code by specifying
Air is sometimes added for water a minimum f´c of 4500 psi and limit-
reduction, segregation resistance, and ing the water-cement or water-cemen-
reduced bleeding. But you can more con- titious materials ratio of the concrete
fidently achieve these same benefits with to 0.45 whenever the concrete will be
fewer finishing problems and without exposed to de-icing chemicals or to
the risk of strength loss by adjusting the freezing and thawing while moist.
mix proportions and the combined ag- The third key to frost resistance is
gregate grading, and by to whip billions of air
using normal, mid-range, bubbles into the con-
or high-range water re- crete so that when the
ducers (superplasticiz- temperature drops below
ers). To justify the dis- freezing, the expanding
advantages sometimes ice (and the unfrozen
associated with entrained water pushed ahead of
air, you need a com- it) can squeeze into empty
pelling reason to use it. Air voids in hardened concrete air voids. As long as the
That compelling reason vary over a wide range of sizes, distance that ice and
is that air is one of the with 5 to 15 billion voids per water have to travel to
cubic yard. In typical freeze/thaw
resistant concrete, no point in the
paste should be farther than
0.008 to 0.010 inch from the
nearest air void.
get to the nearest air void is no more
than 1⁄ 100 inch, most concretes can tol-
erate the freezing pressures. All else being
equal, the shorter the travel distance
(“the spacing factor”), the lower the
freezing pressure; so if 1⁄ 100 inch is good
for most concretes, 8⁄ 1000 inch is better.
To space the bubbles close enough
to control the freezing pressure requires
a large number of microscopically small
bubbles. Unfortunately the air bubbles
in air-entrained concrete vary from the
size of cement grains to the size of coarse
aggregate particles, with an average ra-
dius in the range of 3 to 6 thousandths
of an inch (3 to 6 mils).
To know if the bubbles are close
enough in the hardened paste, you have
to know how many bubbles you have.
To do that you need to know their total
volume and their average size. Volume
we know, more or less, from standard
air tests. Size we know only from mi-
croscopic surveys of hardened concrete
or from nonstandard tests of fresh con-
crete. In some cases the specifier will re-
quire that tests be performed to evalu-
ate the average size of the air voids (using
the ASTM C457 test method). Most of
the time, though, we just control the mix
on the basis of total air volume, with
the amount required based on experi-
ence, and with fingers crossed that the
average bubble size will be small enough.
The total volume of air voids in
the hardened concrete should be about
18% to 20% of the volume of the paste.
When the sand content is about equal
Schematic diagrams of two air-void sys-
tems that provide approximately equiva-
lent protection against freezing and thaw-
ing. The air voids are the yellow circles,
and the black circles represent the zone
of paste protected by a given air void.
On the left is a mix with 4 1 ⁄ 2% air and
average bubble radius of 5 ⁄ 1000 inch. On
the right is 20% air and average bubble
radius of 10 ⁄ 1000 inch.
Ta b l e 4 . 2 . 1 — To t a l a i r c o n t e n t f o r
frost-resistant concrete*
Nominal maximum
aggregate size, in inches.
Severe exposure
3⁄ 8
1⁄ 2
3⁄4
1 6
11⁄ 2
2 5
3 4.5
* From ACI 318-02 Building Code for Structural Concrete, Section 4.2.1
to the paste content, the total volume
of air should therefore be about 9% of
the total mortar volume, and this is the
basis for the air contents required in
Table 4.2.1 of the ACI Building Code.
The table shows the required air con-
tent for the severity of exposure and
nominal maximum aggregate size, re-
flecting the fact that mixes with larger
coarse aggregate particles usually re-
quire less water, cement, and sand, and
therefore have a lower mortar and air
content. (Smaller aggregates are not in-
herently less durable than larger ag-
gregates.) These code requirements are
minimum values and would not nor-
mally be reduced in construction spec-
ifications for projects in moderate or
severe freeze/thaw environments.
But, is it a good idea to increase
these values in specifications to either
achieve more freeze/thaw protection or
to compensate for the normal and in-
evitable losses in air volume that will
result from placing, vibrating, and fin-
ishing the concrete? This is an impor-
tant and complicated question. To an-
swer it we must be realistic about our
inability to predict precisely the re-
quirements for freeze/thaw durability
for a specific concrete in a specific en-
vironment. Exactly how many voids are
needed, what size, and how far apart
they are depend on several things:
■ Number of freeze/thaw cycles
the concrete has to endure
■ Rate of freezing and duration of
below-freezing temperature
■ Porosity and permeability of the
paste
■ Volume of the paste
Air content, as a percentage of
total concrete volume.
Moderate exposure
7.5 6
7 5.5
6 5
4.5
5.5 4.5
4
3.5
■ Degree of saturation
■ Presence of de-icing salts
■ Geometry of the concrete mem-
ber, and
■ Tensile and compressive strength
of the concrete
Usually we don’t know all of these
factors in detail, but we also lack a re-
liable way to take them all into account.
The experience-based values in the table
cannot account for the specifics of all
mixes, materials, and environments.
This means that meeting the code re-
quirements generally leads to durable
concrete, but not meeting the same re-
quirements does not always mean that
the concrete will lack durability.
Furthermore, the question of com-
pensating for air losses from the han-
dling of the concrete is critical but not
necessarily new. What is new is increased
attention to testing air at the point of
placement, and what we’ve found is
that dropping, shaking, squeezing, and
vibrating concrete normally results in
a loss of air volume. One of life’s little
compensations, however, is that the
larger, and therefore less effective, air
bubbles are most likely to be lost first,
leaving the smaller and more effective
air bubbles in the concrete.
What makes this a balancing act is
that durability suffers when air content
is too low, and strength and finisha-
bility can suffer when air content is too
high. (Increasing air by 1% has about
the same strength-reducing potential as
adding 2 gallons of water per yard.
Compensating for this requires a ce-
ment addition of around 35 to 45 pounds
per yard.) Some specifiers solve this
problem by giving priority to freeze/thaw
durability, with far less emphasis on
strength. High air contents are the rule
for these specifiers, and high strength
acceptance criteria and steel trowel fin-
ishes are the exceptions.
Despite these complications, the
code requirements are somewhat con-
servative. The tolerance of ±11⁄ 2%, along
with the option of a 1% reduction when
f´c exceeds 5000 psi, is evidence of that
conservatism. (The Portland Cement
Association has recently reconfirmed
the reasonableness of these provisions.)
More good news is that the table val-
ues are based on 9% air content in mor-
tar for mixtures with water and cement
contents not reduced by water reduc-
ers, pozzolans, or blended aggregates.
When paste volume is decreased, so is
the volume of air needed for frost re-
sistance, and this can give us a bit of
playing room when it comes to air re-
quirements for modern mixes.
To explore this in more detail, re- Total air content required to achieve spacing factor of 0.008 inch for concrete
member that when it comes to air voids when w-c = 0.45 and average air bubble sizes shown. The value “alpha” is
and frost protection, what really mat- often used instead of radius to describe bubble size and is like the Fineness
ters is how far apart the air voids are, Moduluis for sand except that higher values of alpha mean smaller bubbles.
and this depends on the number, size,
and total volume of the bubbles rela- air-void radius were 5 mils. We could achieve frost resistance at 4%
tive to the paste volume—not to the hardened air if the average bubble size were about 41⁄ 2 mils, as is fully
concrete volume. What matters most possible with modern air-entraining admixtures. As long as the 4%
are these characteristics in the hardened air that remained in the hardened concrete was fine enough, this con-
concrete—not in the fresh concrete. The crete could sustain a 2% air loss during handling, from 6% at the
graph on page 60 shows the combined truck, and not jeopardize durability. If the air content had been in-
effect of bubble size and paste content creased to 8% in anticipation of a 2% loss, the strength could have
required to achieve a spacing factor of dropped by 500 psi or more.
0.008 inch in a mixture with a water- Air is almost always lost in the processes of placing, vibrating, and
cement ratio of 0.45. As water content finishing, and for many years the ACI 318 requirements have been gen-
is reduced (such as by water reducers erally satisfactory when air has been measured at the truck only. There-
or by improved aggregate grading) and fore, it is apparent that using these as required values at the chute prior
as bubble size decreases, the required to experiencing a 11⁄ 2% to 2% loss of the larger air bubbles has gener-
total air content decreases as well. ally worked. It may be necessary, however, to target higher values when
Let’s take the example of a mix- anticipated losses are greater or when construction operations selectively
ture with a 3⁄4-inch coarse aggregate remove the finer bubbles. Getting a handle on these situations will be
in a severe environment. For these con- discussed next month. ■
ditions the 318 Code requires a max-
imum w-c of 0.45 and a minimum air
content of 6%. ACI 211.1 (Mix Pro-
portioning) suggests a water require-
ment of about 305 pounds of water
per cubic yard for a 3- to 4-inch slump.
If, by using admixtures and aggregate
blending, we were able to reduce this
water content by 10% to 275 lb/CY,
we could develop adequate freeze/thaw
durability at an air content in the hard-
ened concrete of 5% if the average

Publication #C02L057, Copyright © 2002 Hanley-Wood, LLC. All rights reserved