concrete technology

laxmangoud

Concrete is a construction material composed of cement, fine aggregates (sand) and coarse aggregates mixed with water which hardens with time. Portland cement is the commonly used type of cement for production of concrete. Concrete technology deals with study of properties of concrete and its practical applications.

In a building construction, concrete is used for the construction of foundations, columns, beams, slabs and other load bearing elements.

There are different types of binding material is used other than cement such as lime for lime concrete and bitumen for asphalt concrete which is used for road construction.

Water cement ratio plays an important role which influences various properties such as workability, strength and durability. Adequate water cement ratio is required for production of  workable concrete.

When water is mixed with materials, cement reacts with water and hydration reaction starts. This reaction helps ingredients to form a hard matrix that binds the materials together into a durable stone-like material.

Concrete can be casted in any shape. Since it is a plastic material in fresh state, various shapes and sizes of forms or formworks are used to provide different shapes such as rectangular, circular etc.

Various structural members such as beams, slabs, footings, columns, lintels etc. are constructed with concrete.

ACI 318 Building code requirements for structural concrete and ACI 301 Specifications for Structural Concrete are used in United States as standard code of practice for concrete construction.