Part Three

Concrete
P.L.J. Domone

Introduction
Concrete is a ubiquitous material and its versatility,
comparative cheapness and energy efciency have
ensured that it is of great and increasing importance for all types of construction throughout the
world. Many structures have concrete as their principal material, albeit as a composite with steel to
give either reinforced or prestressed concrete, but
even in those structures where other materials such
as steel or timber form the principal structural elements, concrete will normally still have an important role, for example in the foundations.
In its simplest form, concrete is a mixture of
cement, water and aggregates in which the
cement and water have combined to bind the
aggregate particles together to form a monolithic
whole. The hardened properties are obviously of
paramount importance, and depend on a very
complex structure. However, as we shall see, the
study of concrete is further complicated by other
factors, including:
Many concretes also contain other materials,
in small or large quantities, which modify the
properties, generally to advantage, but often
with undesirable side effects.
The properties in the newly mixed, fresh (or
uid) state must be such that the concrete can
be transported from the mixer, handled,
placed in the moulds or formwork and compacted satisfactorily. This requirement can be
demanding, for example with in-situ concrete
being placed in extreme weather conditions in
parts of a structure with difcult access. The
responsibility for ensuring that these operations are carried out satisfactorily rests with
civil engineers; in this respect concrete is different to most other structural materials
which are supplied in a ready-to-use state.

Even when hardened, the concretes structure

and properties are not static, but continue to
change with time. For example, about 5060
per cent of the ultimate strength may be
developed in 7 days, 8085 per cent in 28 days,
and small but measurable increases in strength
have been found in 30-year-old concrete.
The concrete, and any steel contained within
it, can deteriorate for a variety of reasons, and
so ensuring adequate durability as well as
mechanical properties such as strength and
stiffness is a major consideration.
A look at the contents list will show that all of these
issues are covered in this part of the book. We start
by describing the constituent materials of concrete,
and then discuss the fresh and early properties
before going on to consider the hardened properties
of deformation and strength. The principles of mix
design, the process of selecting the relative proportions of the constituents to give the required properties, are then presented. We then discuss some
non-destructive test methods, following which
various aspects of durability are then considered.
Finally, we come right up-to-date by describing
some aspects of recent developments in high
performance concrete which are extending the
properties and uses of the material in exciting ways.
This is a logical sequence of presentation, but not all
courses in concrete technology follow this order,
and the chapters and sections within them are
written so that they need not be read consecutively.

Historical background
Even though our knowledge and understanding
of the material is far from complete, and research
continues apace, concrete has been successfully

used in many cultures and in many civilisations.

It is not just a modern material; various forms of
it have been used for several millennia. The oldest
concrete discovered so far is in southern Israel,
and dates from about 7000 BC. It was used for
ooring, and consists of quicklime, made by
burning limestone, mixed with water and stone
which set into a hardened material. Mortars and
concretes made from lime, sand and gravels
dating from about 5000 BC have been found in
Eastern Europe, and similar mixtures were used
by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks some three
to four thousand years later. Early concretes produced by the Romans were also of this type, but
during the second century BC, it was the Romans
who rst made concrete with a hydraulic cement,
i.e. one which reacts chemically with the mix
water, and is therefore capable of hardening
under water and is subsequently insoluble. The
cement was a mixture of lime and volcanic ash
from a source near Pozzuoli. This ash contained
silica and alumina in an active form which combined chemically with the lime; the term pozzolana is still used to describe such materials.
Concretes produced by combining this cement
with aggregates were used in many of the great
Roman structures, for example in the foundations
and columns of aqueducts, and, in combination
with pumice, a lightweight aggregate, in the
arches of the Colosseum and in the dome of the
Pantheon in Rome.
Lime concretes were used in some structures in
the Middle Ages and after, particularly in thick
walls of castles and other fortications, but it was
not until the early stages of the Industrial Revolution in the second half of the eighteenth century
that a revival of interest in the material led to any
signicant developments. In 1756, John Smeaton
required a mortar for use in the foundations and
masonry of the Eddystone Lighthouse, and, after
many experiments, he found that a mixture of
burnt Aberthaw blue lias, a clay-bearing limestone from South Wales, and an Italian pozzolana
produced a suitable hydraulic cement.
In the 1790s, James Parker developed and
patented Roman cement (a confusing name
since it bore little resemblance to the cement of

Roman times). This was made from nodules of a

calcareous clay from North Kent, which were
broken up, burnt in a kiln or furnace, and then
ground to a powder to produce the cement.
Alternative sources of suitable clay were soon
identied, and production of signicant quantities
continued until the 1860s. The cement was used
in many of the pioneering civil engineering structures of the period, such as Brunels Thames
Tunnel and the foundation of Stephensons Britannia Bridge over the Menai Straits.
Roman cement, and some others of a similar
type developed at about the same time, relied on
using a raw material which was a natural mixture
of clay and calcareous minerals. Methods of producing an articial cement from separate clayand lime-bearing materials were therefore sought,
resulting in the patenting by Joseph Aspdin in
1824 of Portland cement. A mixture of clay and
calcined (or burnt) limestone was further calcined
until carbon dioxide was expelled, and the
product was then ground into the ne cement
powder. This had hydraulic cementitious properties when mixed with water, and was called Portland cement because Aspdin considered the
hardened product to have a resemblance to Portland stone. In 1828, Brunel found the hardened
mortar to be three times stronger than that made
from Roman cement, and he used it for repairs in
the Thames Tunnel. However, Portland cement
was relatively expensive, and it did not become
widespread in use until larger scale production
processes were developed. In particular, the
replacement of single-shaft kilns by continuousprocess rotary kilns in the 1890s was critical.
Increasingly larger capacity kilns have met the
enormous world-wide demand of the twentieth
century. A measure of the importance of Portland
cement is that it was the subject of one of the rst
British Standards (BS 12) in 1904, subsequently
revised several times. Although the constituent
materials have remained essentially the same,
renements in the production processes, in
particular higher burning temperatures and ner
grinding, and a greater knowledge of cement
chemistry and physics have led to steadily
increasing quality and uniformity of the cement.

For at least the last 100 years, the vast majority

of concrete has been made with Portland cement.
However, as we will see in the next chapter, this is
not a single material, and there are a considerable
number of varieties and types, with an ever more
increasing number of international standards.
Over the last 50 years or so, there has also
been increasing use of other materials incorporated either to replace some of the Portland
cement (cement replacement materials) or added
to enhance the fresh and/or hardened properties
(admixtures). These are described in their own
chapters.

larger being the coarse aggregate. The maximum

particle size of the coarse aggregate can be either
10, 20 or 40 mm. In most concrete, the ne
aggregate is somewhere between 30 and 45 per
cent of the total aggregate. On mixing, the
volume of water is normally in the range of
5075 per cent of the cement and therefore,
assuming no air, the freshly mixed concrete comprises, by volume:

Denitions

We will see that nearly all of the properties of the

concrete are affected by the amounts of the constituents, i.e. the mix proportions. Therefore, to
ensure that satisfactory properties are achieved,
the mix proportions must be carefully chosen and
controlled. Measuring exact volumes of the
materials is difcult, and the weights required are
normally specied and used for concrete production; the mix proportions are therefore expressed
as the weight of each material required in a unit
volume of the concrete, e.g. in kg/m3. The relative
density of Portland cement is about 3.15, and
most aggregates used for concrete have a relative
density of 2.55 to 2.65 (the exceptions being
lightweight and high density aggregate used for
more specialised concrete). A few calculations
using these gures and the volumes given above
show that the ranges of the mix proportions by
weight are:

Concrete is a mixture of cement, water, ne

aggregate (sand) and coarse aggregate (gravel or
crushed rocks) in which the cement and water
have hardened by a chemical reaction hydration
to form a binder for the (nearly) non-reacting
aggregate. Other materials in addition to the
above are often incorporated, such as cement
replacement materials and admixture mentioned
above.
Grout is a mixture of cement and water only; it
will hydrate and gain strength, but it is rarely
used for structural purposes since it is subject to
much higher dimensional changes than concrete
under loading or in different environments, and it
is more expensive. Mortar, a mixture of cement,
water and ne aggregate or sand, is more commonly used for small volume applications, for
example in brickwork (see Chapter 30).

Mix proportions
The aggregates form the bulk of the concrete
volume, typically 7080 per cent. Most of the
remainder is the hydrated cement and water
binder, often called the hardened cement paste
(hcp). There is also a small quantity of air voids
(typically 13 per cent of the volume) which has
not been expelled when the concrete was placed.
The aggregate is divided at a particle size of
5 mm, all particles with a diameter smaller than
this being the ne aggregate, and all particles

616% cement
1220% water
2030% ne aggregate
4055% coarse aggregate.

cement
water
aggregates (coarse  ne)

150600 kg/m3
110250 kg/m3
16002000 kg/m3

The total of these for any particular mix gives, of

course, the concrete density, which can vary from
22002450 kg/m3. As we will see, the ratio of the
weights of water to cement, normally referred to
just as the water/cement ratio, is an important
factor inuencing many of the concretes properties. Values are typically in the range 0.3 to 1.0.