oncrete is the basic requirement of every construction project either small or big. It is manufactured at the construction site or at a centralized concrete production unit from where it is then imported to the construction site. A special range of concrete equipment is employed for production and conveyance of concrete including concrete batching plant, mobile concrete mixers or transit mixers, concrete pumps etc. The modern equipments used in concrete production are advanced machineries capable of manufacturing concrete with complete automated production methods within shorter production times. The manufacturing time, speed, features and performance of these machineries may vary but not the way of manufacturing and ingredients required for manufacturing concrete.
Concrete in a concrete batching plant or a concrete mixer is prepared by thorough mixing of ingredients that include cement, water and other aggregates. Let us now get the information on different ingredients that go into preparation of concrete in concrete production units or equipments.
Concrete is a thoroughly mixed bi-product of cement, water and aggregates like sand, gravel and crushed stone. As the concrete is mixed in the production equipment the paste of cement and water will bind with aggregates. The mixed mass of ingredients will start hardening and form into rock like mass with passing time because of chemical reaction occurring between cement and water. In many concrete production methods certain supplementary cementitious materials are also added. To know more about concrete batching plant production equipments, visit Apollo Infratech.
Ingredients used in Concrete Production
Cement
Cement is the basic material for construction. It is main ingredient of concrete which helps in forming or setting of the concrete with its hardening property. Cement when combines with water, undergoes a process called hydration to form hard mass called paste. This paste acts as a gelling substance which holds together the other ingredients of concrete like sand, gravel, crushed stone, or other granular materials for formation of concrete.
Water
The amount of water present in a concrete mixture decides its thickness. More the water much diluted is the concrete mixture. Much diluted concrete is not effective for construction needs and therefore less water is often desired for an efficient concrete mixture. A proper ratio of cement and water will increase the effectiveness of concrete by increasing its flexural and compressive strength and resistance to weathering. Less water ensures better bonding between the ingredients of concrete decreasing the volume change of the concrete due to wetting and drying. This reduces permeability of concrete mixture and therefore giving it better resistance to cracking.
Aggregates
More than 60% of the concrete mixture is made up of aggregates. These are less expensive and used to offer volume stability to the hardened concrete. There are essentially two types of aggregates used for production of concrete fine aggregates and coarse aggregates. Sand and combination of particles very small, less than 5mm fall under the category of fine aggregates where coarse aggregates include larger ingredients like crushed gravel and stone, blast furnace slag or crushed concrete with particles larger than 5mm. Aggregates can help control the shrinkage of concrete which when increased causes cracking that is not at all desirable in construction.
Most often, apart from these above mentioned ingredients, even supplementary cementitious materials like fly ash, silica fume, calcined clay, calcined shale are also added in concrete. These materials in combination with blended cement will enhance the properties of the hardened concrete for efficient construction.
Conclusion:
Therefore it’s the proper amount or ratio of the cement, water, sand, gravel, crushed stone, fly ash, silica fume, calcined clay, calcined shale etc that decides the quality of concrete produced for construction needs. Apollo Infratech is a leading manufacturer of concrete equipments offering high quality concrete production solutions for Indian infrastructure companies for efficient construction needs.
This article educates reader about ingredients used by concrete equipment in production concrete.