New Building Materials

Shishupal Singh

SELF COMPACTING CONCRETE

Introduction
Concrete that is able to flow under own weight and completely fill the formwork, even in the presence of dense reinforcement, without the need of any vibration, whilst maintaining homogeneity Self-compacting concrete (SCC) is a flowing concrete mixture that is able to consolidate under its own weight. The highly fluid nature of SCC makes it suitable for placing in difficult conditions and in sections with congested reinforcement. Use of SCC can also help minimize hearing-related damages on the worksite that are induced by vibration of concrete. it has proved beneficial economically because of a number of factors, including: yfaster construction yreduction in site manpower ybetter surface finishes yeasier placing yimproved durability ygreater freedom in design ythinner concrete sections yreduced noise levels, absence of vibration ysafer working environment Originally developed in Japan, SCC technology was made possible by the much earlier development of super plasticizers for concrete. SCC has now been taken up with enthusiasm across Europe, for both site and precast concrete work. Practical application has been accompanied by much research into the physical and mechanical characteristics of SCC and the wide range of knowledge generated has been sifted and combined in this guideline document. When the construction industry in Japan experienced a decline in the availability of skilled labour in the 1980s, a need was felt for a concrete that could overcome the M.B.E.M , SCHOOL OF PLANNING AND ARCHETECTURE, NEW DELHI Page 1

New Building Materials

Shishupal Singh

problems of defective workmanship. This led to the development of self-compacting concrete, primarily through the work by Okamura.

Materials Used In SCC

Mixture proportion for SCC is different from the ordinary concrete. SCC incorporates high range of water reducers (HRWR) in large amounts and small doses of viscosity modifying agents (VMA).

Aggregates
Aggregates constitute the bulk of a concrete mixture, and give dimensional stability to concrete. It is restricted to 20mm.It is observed from these studies that self-compact ability is achievable at lower cement (or fines) content when rounded aggregates are used, as compared to angular aggregates. In the case of SCC, rounded aggregates would provide a better and less blocking potential for a given water-to-powder ratio, compared to angular and semi-rounded aggregates. Moreover, the presence of flaky and elongated particles may give rise to blocking problems in confined areas, and also increase the minimum yield stress.

Admixtures
SCC invariably incorporates chemical admixtures - in particular, a high range water reducing admixture (HRWRA) and sometimes, viscosity-modifying agent (VMA). The HRWRA helps in achieving excellent flow at low water contents and VMA reduces bleeding and improves the stability of the concrete mixture. An effective VMA can also bring down the powder requirement and still give the required stability

High range water reducers

A number of studies have been conducted on the use of different types of HRWRAs with or without viscosity modifying agents in self-compacting concrete1. These studies seem to indicate those that HRWRAs that work on the principle of steric hindrance require a lower dosage compared to those based on electrostatic repulsion. Stated in other words, acrylic copolymers (AC) and polycarboxylate ethers (PCE) are effective at lower dosages compared to sulfonated condensates of melamine (SMF) or naphthalene (SNF) formaldehyde20. At present, SNF-based admixture is priced lower (in India) than that based on AC and PCE In the opinion of the authors, SNF-based admixture seems to be preferable that based on PCE.

M.B.E.M , SCHOOL OF PLANNING AND ARCHETECTURE, NEW DELHI

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New Building Materials

Shishupal Singh

Viscosity modifying agents

The conventional method of improving the stability of flowing SCC is to increase the fines content by using a large amount of filler, reactive or inert. Of late, however, attempts are being made to reduce the fines content (and paste content) to the levels of normal concrete (in doing so, reducing the potential for creep and shrinkage) and use viscosity modifying agents (VMAs) to improve the stability. Current research shows that SCC produced with low powder content and VMA had similar fresh concrete properties as SCC with high powder contents produced without VMA. VMAs have been in use for a long time. They were mainly used for underwater concreting in the past, but are now also used in self-compacting concrete. Most VMAs have polysaccharides as active ingredient; however, some starches could also be appropriate for control of viscosity in SCC

Workability testing for self-compacting concrete Slump flow test

Freshly mixed concrete was subjected to standard and non-standard tests to evaluate the workability, bleeding capacity, and segregation potential. Standard slump cone (200mm by 100mm by 300mm) was filled with concrete and the mean diameter of the spread (known as slump flow) was measured on lifting the cone. According to IS 456:2000 slump flow is 600mm.

Box differential height

A box differential height test was carried out to evaluate the workability of concrete. The apparatus consists of 300mm by 300mm by 400mm box with a movable partition at the centre. The freshly mixed concrete was filled in one half (150mm by 150mm by 400mm) of the box and then the partition was pulled to provide 75mm high opening. The fresh concrete flows through the opening into the empty section of the box. Once the flow was stabilized, the differential height was measured. The test was repeated and the average of two results is reported here as the differential height. The box apparatus can be modified to accommodate 10mm diameter reinforcing bars at 38mm spacing at the opening location. The presence of bars retards the concrete flow, thus increasing the differential height measured.

M.B.E.M , SCHOOL OF PLANNING AND ARCHETECTURE, NEW DELHI

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New Building Materials

Shishupal Singh

Segregation test
Flowing nature of concrete is prone to segregation when allowed to fall through a height. In this test, segregation of fresh concrete was measured by dropping the fresh concrete from 600, 800 and 1000mm heights using the modified compacting factor apparatus. The concrete collected in a standard 150mm diameter by 300mm high cylinder was allowed to harden in the mould. After 24 hours of casting, the concrete was removed from the cylinder and sliced into three 100mm high sections. The concrete density of these sections was determined to assess the segregation tendency of concrete.

Bleeding test
The bleeding of concrete was determined according to Australian Standard AS1012.6. The bleeding water from the mix was collected continuously to assess the bleeding capacity of concrete.

Advantages of SSC

M.B.E.M , SCHOOL OF PLANNING AND ARCHETECTURE, NEW DELHI

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