DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY

CE 641: CE Materials I Homework #2 Date: 09/20/2018

Submitted by: Poornima Patil

1. A contractor wants to add CaCl2 to Type III cement in a concrete mix for an
existing bridge deck repair that needs to be opened in the shortest period of time.
What are the issues that you see? What are the alternatives?
Issues
 Type III cement has less initial and final setting time adding CaCl2 to it will
significantly reduce the initial and final setting time which leads to very rapid set
of mix, because of which the placing and finishing may become difficult.
 The purpose is to repair the bridge deck using Type III cement, but using CaCl2
leads to penetration of chloride ions into the concrete. Once the chloride ions
reach the reinforcement rods, it eliminates the passivating ferrous oxide film on
the rods and promotes corrosion and increase the potential for scaling.
Alternatives
 Using non–calcium chloride accelerators such as triethanolamine, sodium
thiocyanate, calcium formate, or calcium nitrate, nitrite.
 Curing at higher temperatures
 Increasing cement content

2. Why isn’t pozzolan used with Type III cement?

Type III cement is High early strength cement and is used in rapid construction. Use of
pozzolan with type III cement will lead to less early strength which will not serve the
purpose of using high early strength (Type III) cement.
Type III cement is also used in repair works, but using pozzolan with it reduces its (Type
III) resistance to erosion and weathering action.

3. If a water reducer is added to the concrete mix without changing other ingredients,
what will happen to the properties of the concrete? If the intention of adding the
water reducer is to increase the compressive strength of hardened concrete, how can
this be achieved?
If water is added to the concrete mix without changing the other quantities then the slump
of the concrete mix is increased and hence increases the workability.
A water reducer allows the use of a lower amount of mixing water while maintaining the
same workability level. Used in this manner, the water reducer allows a lower water–
cement ratio and therefore increases the compressive strength.
4. How can the water reducer be used to achieve each of the following functions?
a) improve strength
The strength of the concrete mix can be increased by using the water reducer by
lowering the quantity of water and keeping the cement content constant, which
reduces the water cement ratio
b) improve workability
Adding a water reducer without altering the other quantities in the concrete mix
increases the slump, which is a measure of concrete consistency and an indicator
of workability
c) improve economy
The cost of the mix, which is primarily determined by the amount of cement, can
be reduced. In this case, the water reducer allows a decrease in the amount of
water. The amount of cement is then reduced to keep the water– cement ratio
equal to the original mix. Thus, the quality of the mix, as measured by
compressive strength, is kept constant, although the amount of cement is
decreased.

5. Extract information from Tables 6.9 & 6.10 and prepare a new table to show the
effects (Increase (↑), Decrease ( ↓) or Unchanged (↔) of using (1) Fly Ash and (2)
Silica Fume on (a) fresh concrete behavior of workability, air content, heat of
hydration & rate of strength gain and (b) hardened concrete properties of
compressive strength, drying shrinkage, permeability & sulfate resistance.

Table 5.1 Effect of Fly ash and Silica fume on freshly mixed concrete
Silica
Quality Measure Fly Ash
Flume
Workability Increases Decreases
Air Content Decreases Decreases
Heat of Hydration Decreases Unchanged
Rate of Strength Gain Increases Increases

Table 5.2 Effect of Fly ash and Silica fume on Hardened concrete
Silica
Quality Measure Fly Ash
Flume
Compressive Strength Increases Increases
Drying Shrinkage Increases Decreases
Permeability Decreases Decreases
Sulfate Resistance Increases Increases