QUIZ- 04
Name- Anish Ravindra Valmiki
Student Id- 300321845
Course- CVG 5150- Advance Concrete Technology
Prof- Leandro F. M. Sanchez
Université d’Ottawa University of Ottawa
Faculté de génie Faculty of Engineering
Département Department
degénie civil ofCivil
Engineering
CVG 5150 – ADVANCED CONCRETE TECHNOLOGY
Quiz IV
Dr. Leandro F. M. Sanchez Date: October 12th, 2023
1. Please, define workability, consistency, and viscosity.
WORKABILITY:
• Workability can be defined as a property of freshly mixed concrete which determines the ease
and homogeneity with which it can be mixed, placed, consolidated, and finished.
• Workability is considered to increase or improve as the ease of placement, consolidation, and
finishing of a concrete increase.
CONSISTENCY:
• Consistency is the ability of freshly mixed concrete to flow.
• Concrete with better consistency increases workability and performance.
• A good consist concrete reduces the placing and compaction effort, which reduces the time of
concreting.
VISCOCITY:
• Viscosity can be defined as a resistance to flow of concrete.
• There are certain factors which influence the viscosity such as shear rate, shear rate time/
period, Temperature and pressure.
• IS unit of viscosity is Pascal second (Pa.s)
2. What are the types of water-reducers admixtures? What are their
differences?
Water reducing admixtures are used to free the trapped water that is present in concrete mix and
to improve workability. It also reduces the water content of concrete by 5-10%.
Different type of WRA’s based on performance are as follows:
CONVENTIONAL ADMIXTURE MID-RANGE ADMIXTURE HIGH-RANGE ADMIXTURE
It reduces the water content It reduces the water content It reduces the water content
by approximately 5% by approximately 10% by approximately 15%
It is also termed as super
plasticizers.
3. While the use of air-entraining admixtures, one uses a % of admixture
incorporated in the concrete. What does this % mean? How can we ensure it
is effective ?
• Air entraining admixtures are responsible for the development of microscopic air bubbles within
the concrete during mixing.
• While using air-entraining admixtures, use of percentage of admixture plays a crucial role
because:
• -Strength decreases if the spacing between the void is less.
• -Water between void freezes if spacing is more.
• For adequate protection in freezing and thawing environments, air void spacing factor should
not be larger than 0.2mm.
• Increasing the air content will typically decrease the strength of concrete.
• An increase of 1% in air content will typically decrease compressive strength by about 5% in
concrete mixtures with a compressive strength in the range of 2l to 35 MPa (3000 to 5000 psi)
4. Please describe concrete microstructure.
• Concrete exhibits easy macro-behavior but is complex at the microstructural level.
• Its composition involves a mix of hydrated products, water existing in diverse states, and
inert materials like fillers, sand, and coarse aggregates.
• These elements intricately interplay to influence concrete's behavior in both its fresh and
hardened states.
• It is essential to understand the interconnections between hydration products that form the
cementing matrix.
• Microstructure of hydration products:
CSH- Calcium silicate hydrates (Over 50%)
• It is not a well-defined compound.
• An approximate description, such as C3S2H8, captures its complexity imperfectly.
• Its C/S ratio is greater than 1.5 (1.5-2.0)
• It is a colloidal and an amorphous material, which is very fine material and has high surface
area close to 400m2/g.
• Interaction with water plays an important role in CSH behaviour.
• It can be studied by electron optical technique.
Calcium hydroxide (20-25%).
• It is a well crystallized material and possesses a hexagonal tabular morphology.
• Its structure is much greater than CSG.
• It can be seen by an optical microscope.
Calcium Sulfoaluminates (10-15%)
• ETTRINGITE: It is a crystallized hexagonal material and is present inform of a long slender
needle.
• It can be seen by an optical microscope.
• MONOSULPOALUMINATE: These are well developed clusters as thin hexagonal plates.
• It cannot be seen by optical microscope.
5. Explain using your own words why Powers law is effective and how it can be
used to predict performance of concrete mixtures.
• Porosity is important for mechanical property and durability.
• Total porosity of cement paste can be calculated easily by using Power’s Law.
• It is possible to calculate hydrated “cement gel” (CSH, CH and sulfoaluminates) and two
types of water i.e. : non-evaporable (i.e., water lost while heating over 1000°C) and
evaporable (i.e., water lost during oven-drying at 105°C).
• Evaporable water is present in capillary pores and gel pores while non-evaporable water is
combined structurally with hydrated products.
• Power’s Law is effective as we can calculate Volume of capillary pores (Vc), Volume of
unhydrated cement (Vu), Original volume of paste (Vp), Capillary porosity (Pc), Gel space
ratio (X).
• Since various properties of concrete and volume changes can be calculated using power’s
law, it is effective to predict the performance of concrete mixture.
• Calculation of volumes change: Power’s Law
1. Non-evaporable water (wn): α is the degree of hydration.
wn = 0.24 * α * g/g of original (dry) cement
2. Gel water (wg): evaporable water associated with hydrates (CSH)
wg = 0.18 * α * g/g of original (dry) cement
3. Total volume of hydration products (Vhp):
Vhp = 0.68 * α cm3/g of original (dry) cement
4. Gel porosity (Pg): common for all hydrated cement products
Pg = wg / Vhp = 0.26
5. Volume of capillary pores (Vc):
Vc = w/c – (0.36 * α) cm3/g of original (dry) cement
6. Volume of unhydrated cement (Vu): vc is specific volume of cement.
Vu = (1 – α)* vc cm3/g of original (dry) cement
7. Original volume of paste (Vp):
Vp = (w/c + vc) cm3/g of original (dry) cement
8. Capillary porosity (Pc):
Pc = Vc/Vp
9. Gel space ratio (X):
X = Vhp / (Vhp – Vc)
6. Explain (using your own words) the following plots:
A)
• In figure A when α=0, In fresh paste the amount of water available and unhydrated cement is
highest.
• It can be seen that there is a decrease in water and unhydrated cement as there is an increase
in the degree of hydration.
• It can also be seen that there is an increase in Gel pores and hydrated products (gel) with an
increase in degree of hydration.
• When the stage of complete hydration is reached i.e., when α=1, there is a small amount of gel
pores and little amount of capillary pores.
B)
i) w/c=0.30
• There is some amount of unhydrated cement and a constant amount of gel pores.
ii) w/c=0.40
• The unhydrated cement keeps decreasing with constant amount of gel pores and little empty
pores are formed.
iii) w/c from 0.50 to 0.70
• With the increase in w/c ratio, at w/c=0.5, unhydrated cement in 0 whereas the capillary pores
increase linearly till w/c=0.7.
• The amount of Gel pores and hydrated products (gel) remains constant.
