CONCRETE OPERATION

BY
THABATCO
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CONCRETING OPERATIONS
The operations which are followed in actual practice in the making of concrete
and in improving and maintaining the quality of concrete are known as concreting
operations. The following operations are involved in concrete making :
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1) Storing of materials
2) Batching of materials
3) Mixing of various ingredients
4) Transportation of concrete mix
5) Placing of concrete
6) Compaction of concrete
7) Finishing of concrete surface
8) Curing of concrete
9) Joints in concrete.
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Storing of concrete materials

The process of keeping the

ingredients of concrete in their
proper place to protect them from
the effect of weathering is called
storing.
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OBJECT TO STORING

Maintaining the quality and grading of

materials is the main objective of storage
of materials. Every effort should be made
that the quality of cement do not
deteriorate during storage in warehouses
or at the site of work.
Storage of cement 5
Cement is a finely ground material. It is highly hygroscopic. It absorbs
moisture which may be in the form of free water. An absorption of 1 to
2% of water has no effect ,but further amount of absorption reduce the
strength of cement. If the absorption exceeds 5% the cement is, for all
ordinary purposes ruined. During the storing and transporting of
cement, care is always taken to keep it away from moisture.
 METHOD OF STORING CEMENT IN 6
WAREHOUSE
1)The cement bags should be placed directly over the
floor if it is dry and if not then the bags should be
placed on a raised platform made of wooden planks.
2)The space between the exterior walls and piles
should be 0.30 m (A group of number of bags
arranged together closely is called pile.)
3)Bags should be placed close together to avoid
circulation of air.
4)The height of pile should not be more than 2.7m i.e.
not more than 15 bags should be placed one above
the other. The width of pile should not be more than
3m.
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5)The cement bags should be placed in
header course and stretcher course
alternatively if height of pile exceeds
1.44m (i.e. 8 bags ). The bags are arranged
to avoid danger of over toppling of
cement bags.
(6) Cement bags should not be removed on
the principle of first in and first out. For
this purpose, each consignment should be
piled separately and date plates should be
kept for showing date of arrival.
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STORING OF AGGREGATES
Storing of aggregates should be done
in such a way as to:-
•Maintain the uniformity of grading
•Prevent segregation
•Maintain uniform surface water
condition
•Avoid mixing of harmful material in the
aggregate.
Precautions for maintaining uniformity of 9
grading

• Hard and dry patch of ground should be

selected for storing of the aggregate. If a
hard surface is not available, provide a
platform of planks, G.I. sheets, floor of bricks
or a weak concrete layer. This platform is
used to avoid the mixing of soil with the
aggregates.
• The aggregates of various sizes should be
kept separately. Piles of sand and coarse
aggregate should be kept separate.
 PRECAUTIONS FOR PREVENTION OF 10
SEGREGATION
• During stock piling successive consignments should not be
dropped on the same place to form a pyramid. It will lead
to segregation i.e. the coarser material rolls down the
sides of piles and fine material will concentrate in the
centre.
• The aggregates should be placed in layer not thicker than
one truck dumped at same place.
• The aggregates should not fall from a height while being
transported and dumped.
• The pile should be as near as possible to the mixer to
avoid greater distance of transport.
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PRECAUTIONS FOR PRESERVING
UNIFORMITY OF MOISTURE CONTENT
• The area occupied by each pile should be as large as possible. The height of
pile should be from 1.25m to 1.75m .
• The pile should be allowed to stand for 24 hours at least before being used
so that the moisture has time to settle.
• In the case of sand, the bottom layer (last 300mm) should not be used as
the bottom layer becomes saturated with water.
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PRECAUTIONS FOR CLEALINESS OF

AGGREGATES .

The piles of aggregates should be kept

clean of leaves, bidis ,vegetable debris,
animal refuse etc.
STORING OF WATER 13

Water is stored at site in a masonry tank built for the purpose or in other
clean containers . The walls of the tank should be somewhat higher than
the surrounding ground. Sufficient quantity of
water should be stored in advance to ensure the continuity of concreting
operations. If the water obtained from a source contains dust etc. it should
be collected a day in advance to allow such suspended impurities to settle
down before use.
BATCHING 14

The process of measurement of

ingredients (cement, fine aggregate,
coarse aggregate and water ) for making
concrete is called batching.
Batching is done in two ways :-
1) Volume batching
2) Weigh batching
 Volume batching 15

(a) Batching of cement :-Cement is always batched by weight. Cement should

never be batched by volume, because its weight per unit volume varies
according to the way container (forma) is filled.
(b) Batching of aggregates :- Wooden batch boxes known as formas are used
for batching of fine and coarse aggregates by volume. The formas should be
made of 30 mm thick timber.
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(c) Batching of water :-It is practice in the field to
add water by tin cans or buckets. It is not an
accurate method. It results in variable strength of
concrete.
Some of mixers are equipped with calibrated
water tank attached permanently to the mixers. For
the mixers not provided with water tank calibrated
syphon system can be easily got installed, such as
the one used in cisterns of water closets. If,
however, there are no such automatic devices,
water should be measured in calibrated cans very
accurately and then only should be added in the
mixer.
MIXING OF CONCRETE 17

The process of mixing of various ingredients of concrete in specified

proportions is termed as mixing of concrete.
Methods of mixing :- There are two methods of mixing :
(a) Hand mixing
(b) Machine mixing
HAND MIXING 18

The process of mixing the ingredients of concrete by manual labour is

called hand mixing .
Hand mixing is adopted for small and unimportant works and where
quantity of concrete used is small. Hand mixing method requires more
cement(10%more) than machine mixing for obtaining the small strength
of concrete.
FOLLOWING IS STEP WISE PROCEDURE 19

FOR MIXING BY HAND

• A platform of bricks ,lean concrete or iron sheets is
constructed. The size of the platform depends upon the
quantity of concrete to be mixed at a time.
• Spread out a measured quantity of sand evenly on the
mixing platform.
• Spread the cement uniformly on this sand and mix it till
the colour of mixture is uniform.
• Spread this mixture evenly again on platform.
• Spread the measured coarse aggregate evenly on the
mixing platform.
• Mix the material dry. .
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• Make a hollow in the centre of the mixed material.
After this 75% of the required quantity of water
based on water-cement ratio is added and then start
remixing taking care that no water escapes the
mixture.
• The remaining water is added with the continuation
of mixing process.
• Normally mixing time should not exceed 3 min.
• The platform should be cleaned at the end of day's
work so that it is ready for use on the next day.
 MACHINE MIXING 21

The process of mixing the ingredients of concrete by a machine is called

machine mixing.
In this case where a large quantity of concrete is to be produced, hand
mixing becomes costly even if the labour is cheap. The machine mixing
becomes essential. The concrete can thus be produced at a faster rate and at
a lesser cost. The quanlity of concrete by machine mixing is also better.
TRANSPORTATION OF CONCRETE 22

The process of carrying concrete mix

from the place of its mixing to final
position or deposition is called
transportation of concrete.
Transportation of concrete mix is very
important because in transportation,
time factor is involved. The mix should be
transported as quickly as possible.
Precaution in Transportation of concrete 23

The following precaution should be taken during transporting concrete

from the mixing place :
• Concrete should be transported as quickly as possible to the formwork
within the initial setting time of cement.
• Efforts should be made to prevent segregation.
• Transportation cost should be as low as possible.
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• The concrete mix should be protected from drying in hot weather and
from rain during transportation.
• The concrete should be kept agitated in truck mixer so that it does not
become stiff when transportation is likely to take more time.
• No water should be lost from the mix during transportation.
• The permissible duration of transport of concrete should be determined
in the laboratory.