The/nternat;onalJourna/of Cement Composites and Lightweight Concrete, Volume 7, Number 2

May 1985

Casting delay on workability and strength of concrete

R. Sri Ravindrarajah

SYNOPSIS Placing of concrete may be delayed from the time of mixing due to many reasons. This investigation showed that although the delay causes considerable loss in workability, there was no detrimental effect on compressive strength for concretes with or without set-retarding admixture or superplasticizer. Incremental addition of superplasticizer was capable of maintaining the concrete slump within a small variation throughout the delay period. The effectiveness of superplasticizer to improve the workability was found to be a function of initial slump and the age of fresh concrete. KEYWORDS Concretes, workability, admixtures, compressive strength, concrete retarders, water reducing agents, water-cement ratio, mechanical properties, time-dependence, strength of materials.

INTRODUCTION Although it is desirable to place fresh concrete as soon as the mixing operation is completed, the placing of concrete in its final position is generally delayed due to many reasons. Improper methods of handling of concrete, site organisation, work scheduling and breakdown of equipment are some of the causes for the unexpected long delay. For ready-mixed concrete, the delay time is influenced by the location of sites from the central batching plant and by the traffic conditions on route. As the workability of fresh concrete greatly diminishes with time, too long a delay may cause the concrete to be unfit for placing. This problem is particularly severe in hot weather conditions and when chemical admixtures are used. Although proper con sideration of the workability loss at the mix design stage may help to place concrete without difficulties, the one unknown factor is the quality of concrete placed after excessive delay. The main aim of this investigation was to study the influence of time on the workability of fresh concrete and the effect of delay time on its compressive strength. Plain concrete mixes and concrete mixes with set-retarding admixture or high range water-reducing superplasticizer have been used. In addition, the effects of incremental addition of superplasticizer on workability and compressive strength were investigated. EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS Three series of tests were carried out in this investigation. The first and second series were designed to study the effects of set-retarding admixture and superplasticizer on the loss of workability with time. The influence of casting delay up to a period of 2 hours on compressive strength was also studied in these series. In the last series, the pattern of superplasticizer addition was varied from a single step to four steps over a period of 90 minutes and its influence on workability and compressive strength was studied.

Senior Lecturer. Department of Ciwl Engineering. Nationar University, of Singapore. S ngapore 0511 ~c} Corlstruction Press 1985 0262-5075/85/07250109/$02.00

109

Casting delay on workabflity and strength of concrete

Rz~wndr~ra!,-#"

Materials and Mix Proportions

Ordinary portland cement (ASTM Type I) was used throughout the investigation. In the first series, washed mining sand was used whereas in the second and third series washed natural sand was used as fine aggregate. The coarse aggregate used in all three series was crushed granite having a maximum size of 20 mm. A set-retarding lignin based chemical admixture was used in the first series and sulphonated napthalene formaldehyde polycondensate superplasticizer was used in the second and third series. In the first series, concrete mixes were produced with and without the set-retarding admixture. The mix proportions of all the mixes were 1:2.17:4.03 (cement: fine agregate:coarse aggregate) by weight. The water to cement ratios by weight used were 0.60, 0.65 and 0.70. For the concrete mixes with the admixture, a single dose (0.60% of cement by weight) of the admixture as recommended by the manufacturer was used. The mix proportions for the control plain concrete and the superplasticised concretes in the second and third series were 1:2.18:2.18:0.55 (cement:fine aggregate:coarse aggregate:water) by weight. A single dose recommended by the manufacturer for the superplasticizer corresponded to 0.375% of cement by weight.

mixing. In the second series, tests were conducted on fresh concrete to determine the slump and wet density after 0, 10, 30, 50, 70, 90 and 120 minutes of mixing. Similar fresh concrete tests were performed for the concrete mixes in the third series after mixing and at ~he times of the application of the superplasticizer (before and after). For all mixes, 100 mm cubes were cast at the instant when the fresh concrete tests were carried out for the testing of 7-day (for the series I only) and 28-day compressive strength A vibration table was used to achieve full compaction for the cast specimens The cubes were demoulded after 24 hours and moist cured until testing. The tests on fresh and hardened concrete were carried out according to BS 1881 [1]

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Effect of Elapsed Time on Workability

(a) Plain and Set-Retarded Cor~crete Figure 1 shows the change ~n compacting factor with elapsed time for the plain concretes and the concretes with a set-retarding admixture Slump and Vebe test results (not reported here) showed a similar trend as the compacting factor~ The observed increases in the w o r b ability of concrete with set-retarding admixture over that of plain concrete with no admixture showed the plasticizing nature of the admixture used. The results also indicated the gradual loss of workability with the increase in time after mixing for both types of concrete. The rate of workability loss was not significantly affected by the presence of set-retarding admixture. McCarthy [21 reported similar observations under hot vveather condi~. tions (50C) (b) Plain and Superptasticized Concrete The slump loss with time for the plain and superpiasticized concretes is shown in Figure 2. The initial slump of 40 mm for the plain concrete was decreased to 30 and 20 mm in 30 and 70 minutes respectively. Concrete slump loss was found to be proportional to the initial slump level [3]. Superplasticized concretes exhibited large increases in slump within minutes of adding the superplasticizer. For the superptasticizer addition at the elapsed time of 10 minutes, the slump reached 1i5 mm from the initial value of 35 mm. However, when the superplasticizer addition was delayed to the elapsed time of 90 minutes, the slump was increased to 35 mm from the slump value of t5 m m This shows that the fluidising effect of superplaticizer is reduced as the age of fresh concrete is increased. Therefore, it becomes difficult to improve the workability of concrete with a recommended dose of superpiasticizer when the elapsed time is increased The superplasticized concrete maintained the high slump value for about 20 minutes after which a rapid slump loss occurred. The slump of 35 mm was reached after 60 minutes of superplasficizer addition. The corresponding slump value for the plain concrete at the same duration of elapsed time was 20 mm. It is apparent tha~ the superplasticizer addition results in an extension of

Mixing Procedure
The mixing of the concrete in the first series was carried out in a horizontal pan-type mixer. The set-retarding admixture was pre-mixed with the mixing water. The concrete mixes in the second and third series were produced using a vertical drum-type mixer. A minimum mixing time of 3 minutes was maintained for all mixes. For the super-plasticized concrete mix in the second series, the superplasticizer was added 10 minutes after mixing and further mixing was carried out for another minute. In the third series, four superptasticized concrete mixes were produced with the addition of varying proportions of a single dose of superplasticizer at specified times after mixing. The following quantities of superplasticizer addition were considered: (a) single dosage at 90 minutes; (b) two halves of a single dosage at 10 and 50 minutes; (c) two halves of a single dosage at 50 and 90 minutes; and (d) four quarters of a single dosage at 10, 37, 63 and 90 minutes. At the end of each addition, mixing was carried out for another minute. The mixing process was carried out again for one minute before testing and casting the necessary specimens. The concrete mixes in all series were covered with polythene sheets to minimise evaporation of water during the delay period. The laboratory environmental conditions were 28 _+ 2C and 70 +_ 10% R.H.

Testing Procedure
In the first series, the standard workability tests, namely slump, vebe time and compacting factor, were carried out on fresh conSrete after 3, 15, 30 and 60 minutes of

110

Casting delay on workab#/ty and strength of concrete

Rawndrarajah

1.00
.... A ~ L3 <~ D_ O Z U <[ t~

PLAIN

CONCRETE WITH SET-RETARDING

CONCRETE ADMIXTUI:E

Figure 1 Change in compacting

, factor with elapsed t i m e

(Series I)
0.90

C : 02O
~ W : C 0.65 ~ ~ ~

9
0.80

020 0

~'Q

10

20

30

40

50

60

, ELAPSED TIME (MINUTES)

120

100

"\

\
\

o \
\

PLAIN CONCRETE ( P 5 5 ) SUPERPLASTICIZED CONCRETE ($55/10)

E - - 80

60

,,\

l
0

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r~
20 L

X
\

/-,O "

60

60

100

lz0

ELAPSED

TIME ( MINUTES )

At the elapsed time of 10 minutes, quarter, half and single dosage levels resulted in slump gain of 30, 40 and 80 mm respectively. The delay in the addition of superplasticizer caused a reduction in slump gain. For the single dosage level, the increase in slump was reduced from 80 mm to 20 mm when the superplasticizer addition was delayed from 10 minutes to 90 minutes after mixing. Similarly, for the dosage level of half of the single dose, the slump gain was decreased from 40 mm to 25 mm when the superplasticizer was added at B0 minutes instead of 10 minutes. The addition of second half dose at 50 minutes of elapsed time caused a mximum slump gain of 55 mm for the concrete in which the first half dose was added at 10 minutes after mixing. This may be due to the presence of the first half dose of the superplasticizer and to the higher slump of 50 mm before the addition of second increment of the superplasticizer. For the concrete in which two half

Figure2 Changes in slump with elapsed time (Seriesll) time to reach the acceptable minimum slump value. Malhotra [4) reported that this extention in time increased with the dosage level because of the reduction in the rate of slump loss.
Table1 Effect of incremental addition o f s u p e r p l a s t i c i z e r on concrete s l u m p (Series II and Iii)

(c) Concretes with Incremental Addition of Superplast/c/zer Figure 3 shows the change in slump with the elapsed time for concretes in which the superplasticizer was incrementally added The recommended single dose was added either in two equal portions at the elapsed times of 10 and 50 minutes or 50 and 90 minutes, or in four equal portions at the elapsed times of 10, 37, 63 and 90 minutes. Table 1 summarises the effect of incremental addition of superplasticizer on the slump of
concrete

No. 1 2 3 4 5

Elapsed Time (minutes) 10 90 10 50 50 90 10 37 63 90

Slump (mm) Dosage* Level Single Single Half Half Half Half Quarter Quarter Quarter Quarter Before 35 15 40 50 30 30 40 45 40 45 After i 15 35 80 105 55 50 70 65 50 50 Increase 80 20 40 55 25 20 30 20 10 5

The results indicated that the slump gain was proportional to the dosage level of the superplasticizer.

Single dose = Fu!l dosage

111

Casting delay on workability and strength of concrete

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12C

T O HALVES OF SINGLE DOSE AT W e 50 AND 90 MINUTES ~ AND 50 MINUTES FOUR QUARTERS OF SINGLE

A delay period of 60 minutes caused a maximum increase of 16% for the 7-day compressive strength for both types of concrete
Table 2 Relative compressive strength of plain and seb retarded concretes as a function of elapsed time Series I)

10C '\

DOSE AT 10,37.63 AND 90 MINUTES

8C

w~ '%, ,,~ "'X,

~6c
d~

\.

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'\

Elapsed t~me (minutes) 3 15 30 60

Relative compressive strength*(%) Plain concrete Set-retarded concrete 7 days 28 days 7 days 28 days !00 105 105 116 i00 102 104 I08 !00 !08 1i0 116 !00 103 104 i08

* Mean values for mixes with w,'c of 0 60, 065 and 0.70

'

' 6'0 ' z.~ 100 ELAPSED TIME (MINUTES)

Figure 3 Change in slump with elapsed time as a function of pattern of superplasticizer addition (Series III)

doses were made at 50 and 90 minutes after mixing, the effectiveness of the superplasticizer was reduced because of the initial tow slump and of higher age of the fresh concrete. When the single dose was added incrementally in four equal portions, at different times, gain in concrete slump was observed with each incremental addition of superplasticizer. The slump was increased by 30, 20, 10 and 5 mm for the first, second, third and fourth increments respectively (Table 1). It is apparent that the fluidising effect of superplasticizer ~s reduced with the increase in age of fresh concrete. A comparison of the results in Figures 2 and 3 reveals that the incremental addition of superplasticizer, with the first increment at 10 minutes, resulted in the concrete slump above the initial slump value over a period of 90 minutes of elapsed time. Furthermore, the addition of small quantities of superplasticizer (quarter or half dose) for the plain or superplasticized concrete after about 90 minutes of mixing is not effective in improving the concrete slump.

(b) Plain and Superplasticized Concretes Table 3 summarises the 28-day compressive strength of plain and superplasticized concretes as a function of delay in casting. A delay of t20 minutes caused the 28-day compressive strength to increase from 30:5 to 38.0 N/mm 2 for plain concrete and 35.0 to 37.2 N/mm 2 for superplasticized concrete. The results also show that the increase in strength of 25% for plain concrete occurred gradually over a period of 120 minutes of delay time. However, the strength increase of 5% was achieved on the application of the superplasticizer after which there was no significant increase in strength. When the superplasticizer was added to plain concrete after 90 minutes of mixing, the strength increased from 39.3 to 41 5 N/turn 2 (about 6%). (c) Concrete with Incremental Addition of Superplasticizer Table 4 summarises the 28-day compressive strength of superplasticized concrete as a function of delay in casting and the pattern of superplasticizer addition. The results show that the incremental addition of superplasticizer produced no detrimental effect on compressive Table 3 Effect of delayed casting on 28-day compressive strength for plain and superptasticized concretes Compressive strength Mix No.*
(N.,mm 2)

Elapsed time (minutes) 0 i0 30.0 (36.6) 30 32.0 349 60 32.1 36.7 90 120

Effect of Elapsed T i m e on Compressive Strength

(a) Plain and Set-retarded Concrete Table 2 summarises the relative strength of delayed cast concretes at 7 and 28 days. The results show that there is no detrimental effect on strength for the delay in casting up to 60 minutes. Cook [5] reported a similar finding up to a delay period of 90 minutes. Table 2 shows that the compressive strength at 7 and 28 days was increased with the increase in the time after mixing for both plain and set-retarded concretes. A slightly higher percentage of improvement was noted at 7 days than that at 28 days.

P55 $55/10 $55/90

30.5 35.0 32.5

370 38.0 37 1 ~ 7.~ 39.3 (41.5)

*P55 and $55: Plain and superplasticized concrete mixes with water: cement ratio of 0.55 $55/10 and $55/90: Concrete rnixes witiq superptasticizer added at elapsed times of 10 and 90 minutes respectively ( ) Compressive strength immediately after the addition of superplasticizer

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Casting delay on workab/hty and strength of concrete

Rav/ndrarajah

Table4 Effect of elapsed time on 28-day compressive strength for concretes with incremental addition of superplasticizer (Series III)

$55/10, 50* Elapsed time (minutes) 0 10 50 50 90 Compressive strength (N/ram 2) 358 (377) 37.8 (39.2) 403 . . . . . . . . . .

$55/50,90* Elapsed time (minutes) 0 50 50 90 90

--

$55/10, 37, 63, 90" E l a p s e d Compressive time strength (minutes) (N, mm:') 0 10 37 37 63 63 90 90 35.6 (36.4) 36.9 (38.7) 39.0 (39 1) 39.4 (407)

Compressive strength (N/mm 2) 34.3 36.2 (38.4) 373 (38.3)

*$55'10, 50: Concrete m~x with superplasticizeradded at the elapsed times of 10 and 50 minutes (two halves of single dosel $55 50, 90: Concrete m~x wqtn superplast~cizer added at the elapsed times of 50 and 90 minutes {two t~a[ves o # single dose) $55,'I0, 37, 63, 90: Concrete mtx with saperpbsticizer added at the elapsed times as 10, 37, 63 and 90 minutes (four quarters of single dose) ( ) Compresswe strength imme@ately after the incremental addition o; superpJashcizer

strength. In fact, within the 90 minutes delay time, the increase in strength was between 13 and 17% for the incremental addition of superplasticizer in comparison with 6% for the single addition. In general, compressive strength was increased when the superplasticizer was added. This may be due to improved workability and better compaction achieved after the addition of superplasticizer. The results on wet density (not reported here) showed a marginal improvement in its value with the addition of superplasticizer.
CONCLUSIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

A part of the work reported here was carried out whilst the author was with the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Malaya. The author wishes to thank Mr Chin Klan Keong and Mr Loi Yaw Chen for carrying out some parts of this investigation at the National University of Singapore which was supported by the Ministry of Trade and Industry Grant C/81/01 on Low Cost Construction Materials.

REFERENCES

1. Although a set-retarding admixture used increased the workability of concrete, it had no significant influence on the workability loss with time. 2. Effectiveness of the superplasticizer in improving the workability decreased with the delay time. 3. Incremental addition of superplasticizer helps to keep the workability of concrete with little variation during the delay period. 4. Delay in casting results in an increase in compressive strength for plain and for concrete with incremental addition of superplasticizer. A delay of 120 minutes produced an increase of 25% for plain concrete whereas an increase of 13 to 17% was noted for superplasticized concrete with incremental addition after 90 minutes of delay.

British Standard Institution, 'BS 1881: Methods of Testing Concrete', 1970. 2. McCarthy, M. J., 'Tests on set-retarding admixtures', Precast Concrete, Vol. 10, No. 3, March 1979, pp. 128-30. 3. Previte, R. W. 'Concrete slump toss', Journal of American Concrete Institute, Proceedings Vol. 74, No. 8, August 1977, pp. 361-67. 4. Malhotra, V. M. 'Performance of superplasticized concretes that have high water-to cement ratios', Proceedings Transportation Research Board Symposium on Superplasticizer, Transportation Research Record No. 720, Washington D.C., January 1979, pp. 28-34. 5. Cook, G. C. 'Effect of time of haul on strength and consistency of ready-mixed concrete', Journal of American Concrete Institute, Proceedings Vol. 39, No. 5, April 1943, pp. 413 25.

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