GROUPE Concrete and Its Constituents

UNIVERSITY OF ABOMEY-CALAVI
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POLYTCHNIC SCHOOL OF ABOMEY-CALAVI
(EPAC)
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DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING
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SUBJECT : ENGLISH
SECTOR : GC3
THEME : CONCRETE AND ITS

CONSTITUENTS
Student : Teacher :
ADEKAMBI Franck. Mr OLORY Bienvenu
GNANHO Samuel
SAMBA Jean
TOSSA Eliab
1
ACADEMIC YEARS : 2022-2023
TEXT : CONCRETE AND ITS CONSTITUENTS

Concrete has been the most common building material for many years. It is expected to
remain so in the coming decades. Much of the developed world has infrastructures built
with various forms of concrete. Mass concrete dams, reinforced concrete buildings,
prestressed concrete bridges, and precast concrete components are some typical examples.
It is anticipated that the rest of the developing world will use these forms of construction in
their future development of infrastructures. In pre-historic times, some form of concrete
using lime-based binder may have been used [Stanley, 1980], but modern concrete using
Portland cement, which sets under water, dates back to mid-eighteenth century and more
importantly, with the patent by Joseph Aspdin in 1824.
Traditionally, concrete is a composite consisting of the dispersed phase of aggregates
(ranging from its maximum size coarse aggregates down to the fine sand particles)
embedded in the matrix of cement paste. This is a Portland cement concrete with the four
constituents of Portland cement, water, stone and sand. These basic components remain in
current concrete but other constituents are now often added to modify its fresh and
hardened properties. This has broadened the scope in the design and construction of
concrete structures. It has also introduced factors that designers should recognize in order
to realize the desired performance in terms of structural adequacy, constructability, and
required service life. These are translated into strength, workability and durability in relation
to properties of concrete. In addition, there is the need to satisfy these provisions at the
most cost-effective price in practice.
The quality of concrete in a structure is determined not only by the proper selection of its
constituents and their proportions, but also by appropriate techniques in the production,
transportation, placing, compacting, finishing, and curing of the concrete of the actual
structure, often at a job site…Although these processes have an impact on the actual quality
of the resulting concrete, they are not included in this context. Sources for such information
include publications of concrete institutes in various countries, e.g., American Concrete
Institute in the U.S. and the Concrete Society in the U.K.
It is important to distinguish between the setting times determined for cement paste and
those determined from wet-sieve mortar fraction of a concrete. The testing of both cement
paste and for the mortar fraction of concrete is based on the principle of penetration
resistance and for assessing the rate of stiffening of the respective composition, but their
intended applications are very different. Cement paste testing is for production of cement;
whereas in the case of concrete, it is associated with determining the change in stiffening
rate of concrete due to the addition of a chemical admixture to control setting. To avoid
confusion between the two cases, it may be useful to retain the term setting for cement and
to refer to stiffening in the case of concrete.
2
Key Word :
1- Reinforced concrete : Reinforced concrete is a construction material that combines
concrete and steel bars. It thus combines the compression qualities of concrete and
the tensile strength of steel.
2- Cement : Cement is a hydraulic binder that comes in the form of a fine mineral
powder that hydrates in the presence of water. It forms a setting paste that gradually
hardens in air or in water. It's the fundamental constituent of concrete since it allows
the transformation of a mixture without cohesion into solid body.
3- Sand : Sand in granular material resulting from the natural disintegration of rocks and
the crushing of friable rocks.
4- Aggregates : The aggregate are hard, durable particles that generally contribute to
the structural strength of the mass
5- Mass concrete : Mass concrete is defined as heavy volume concrete work with
largedimensions and boundary conditions that are prone to elevated temperatures
due to a higher rate of the heat of hydratation.
COMMENTS :
3
Concrete is a very important construction material in the resistance, safety and durability
sought in public works and building . The design of Concrete dates back several years and
comes in several forms such as : Mass concrete dams, reinforced concrete buildings,
prestressed concrete bridges, and precast concrete components.
There are numerous positive aspects of concrete : it is a relatively cheap materiel and has a
relatively long life with few maintenance requiremens ; it is strong in compression ; Before it
hardens it is very pliable substance that can easily be shaped and finally it is non-
combustible.
Concrete is a building material that is obtained after mixing several other materials such as:
sand, cement, gravel and water which is the hydraulic binder. Apart from concrete, we also
use mortar which is a mixture of sand, cement and water.
Like natural rocks, concrete has a high compressive strength and a low tensile strength.In
fact,concrete strengh is determined by the force required to crush . Strengh can be affected
by many variables including moisture and temperature. The tensils strengh of concrete can
be improved with the addition of metal rods ,wires,cables or mesh.Where very high tensile
stresses are expected concrete can include pre-tensioned steel wires . This creates
compressive forces in the concrete that help offset the tensil forces that the structure is
subject. This is why its use as construction materials really developed with the invention of
reinforced concrete. In the latter, the reinforcements which are steel bars (initially in iron)
compensate for its insufficiency in traction.
However, it is also important to experiment with the materials in order to assess the quality
of these materials for construction. These are the absolute and apparent density test of
aggregates, sand cleanliness test, particle size analysis tests, etc..
The cleanliness test of the sand, for example, makes it possible to know the quality of the
sand because generally, the sand contains impurities like clay which weakens the resistance
of the concrete. Indeed when there is clay in the sand, and we formulate the concrete, the
clay absorbs the water and reduces the cohesion between the materials.
Therefore, it is important to check the quality of the materials before the formulation of the
concrete.

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UNIVERSITY OF ABOMEY-CALAVI

THEME : CONCRETE AND ITS

TEXT : CONCRETE AND ITS CONSTITUENTS

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