Concrete is a mix of sand, water, coarse aggregate, chemical admixtures, and cement. Several elements will determine the strength and durability of a concrete structure. The primary one among these is the method of concrete mixing you will choose for your construction.
Although most contractors think that mixing concrete is easy, its proper mixture is far from easy. Well-mixed concrete should have a uniform color, homogeneity of the constituents, and cement paste covering the aggregates’ surface.
There are different types of mixing designs you can choose which affect your need and use of concrete crack repair products. If you need to carry out repairs frequently even before your construction is complete, then this might point to mistakes in your concrete mix.
It will also paint in you in poor light and minimize the chances of repeat business or referrals. The following are the modern concrete mixing designs.
American Method
The American concrete institute (ACI) sets this. Here, you will use a specified size aggregate for a specific water content denoted in kg/cubic meter of concrete.
This proportion will determine the workability, durability, and strength of your concrete mix independent of your mix proportions. The American method of concrete mix design is relatively simple to calculate and guarantees you a strong concrete structure.
Graphic Method
This type of concrete mix design is generally used in road and bridge construction which call for incredible strength. The aggregates which will be mixed in the graphic method are passed through sieves which filter fine aggregates measuring 1.18, 4.75 and 2.36 mm.
Coarse aggregates in the graphic method generally measure 38, 19 and 9.5mm. This way, you have the best mix of your fine and coarse aggregates thus giving you a strong and yet easily workable concrete mix.
Indian Standard Method
This method of concrete mix design has been used since 2000. Here, you should determine your concrete’s water-cement ratio, and fine aggregate grading and percentage.
The water content in your concrete mix and the fine aggregate percentage will be adjusted to make your concrete’s workable. The Indian standard method is used for both Portland fly ash and ordinary Portland cement.
Rapid Method
In other concrete mix designs, you will need 28 days to correlate the compressive strength of your cement and another 28 days to get the strength of your trial mix concrete. These 56 days are too long a period to wait for your trial mix’s strength results.
The rapid method cuts back on the period needed to get your concrete’s and cement to only three days. This method will thus significantly cut back on the timeframe of your construction without compromising the strength of your building.
To get the above concrete mix designs, you can opt for hand or machine mixing or get ready mix concrete. Hand mixing will only suffice for small scale projects while machine mixing or the use of ready-mix concrete is ideal for large scale projects.
You might not have the necessary equipment for site mixing and hence settle for the more expensive ready-mix concrete. Nowadays, you can, however, hire concrete mixers from building suppliers to mix you concrete on site and cut back on your constriction costs.
