Factors to Consider When Selecting Concrete Mix for Your Project

Concrete Mix formula is referred to as the appropriate mixture and selection of materials and constituents used to prepare a concrete with pre-determined characteristics in perfect hardened concrete states. The ready mix concretes are produced in order to get pre-defined workability, durability, capacity and strength. But a perfect concrete mix design is also dependent on a few determinants affecting the decision of choice.

Determinants of Selecting & Proportioning of Concrete Materials:

• Considering environmental conditions
• The structural requirements of Concrete Mixtures
• Jobsite production and dispatching conditions
• Types available of raw materials

Major Influencing Determinants Affect The Selection Of Concrete Mix:

1. Compressive Structure and Strength of Concrete

• Compressive structure of concrete is considered as a necessary concrete property. It plays an important role to influence many describable properties to keep concrete hardened and solid.
• The strength of concrete (FCM) is required at its particular stage, usually 28-30 days to determine the proportions of water and cement to create a perfect concrete mix.
• ISO 456-200, British standard and Eurocode follows this term of compressive strength, which is influenced by other factors like time duration and cure to be done in a specific temperature and standardized degree.

2. Concrete Workability

• Workability of concrete is required for satisfactory performance, placement and compaction during the construction process. Satisfactory placement and installation of concrete also depend on the shape, and size of the sections which are likely to be concreted.
• The amount and areas of spacing which is to be reinforced, concrete delivery, dispatching operation and compaction techniques are also other factors affecting the workability of concrete.
• If you have to install concrete in a narrow and complicated section, it is necessary to use high workability concrete with numerous corners and inaccessible areas. This will help you to place and ensure the successful compaction of concrete with an effective amount of efforts.
• Construction companies, contractors and architects should use slump test values to observe the workability.

3. The Durability of Concrete:

• The ability and strength of concrete to withstand damaging and injurious environmental conditions referred to as concrete durability
• Highly-durable concrete is able to give more strength to any building bridge and to any construction projects.
• In the situation where the contractors don’t require high strength concrete but the exposure condition should be highly-durable, so in this requirement, constructors or builders should use the water-cement ratio to achieve that particular demand.
• Water/Cement ratio should be accurate. In case the w/c ratio will be more than the concrete, durability will be less.

4. On-site Quality Control

• The degree of quality control of the concrete can be evaluated by the different testing techniques and results.
• The variation of concrete strength can be measured from the variation in the properties of the concrete mix materials. These quality control measures can be affected due to lack of control of accuracy check, lack of control of batching, dispatching systems and lack of knowledge of mixing, placing, testing and curing.

5. Maximum Nominal Size and Structure of Concrete

• Maximum of size and structure of the concrete is usually determined due to reinforcement spacing controls.
• The aggregate size of the concrete is totally opposite to the proportional requirement of cement water ratio. It is because of the workability and totally proportional to the size and patterns of an aggregate mixture of the concrete.
• The compressive strength of concrete generally depends on the size of aggregate, when you increase the compressive strength, the aggregate size will be decreased to its proportion.

It is necessary to understand which factors or determinants directly affect the decision of concrete – mix design during construction. If you are in need and thinking of placing an order for ready mix concrete for your construction project, you are recommended to contact professional RMC suppliers. They can perfectly guide you while choosing concrete mix designs for your project.