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INGREDIENTS OF CONCRETE
The ingredients of concrete are as follows:
Cement
Fine aggregates (sand)
Coarse aggregate (broken stone or gravel)
Water
And additives are also used to improve the quality of concrete like
plasticizers, retarders, accelerators, air-entraining agents etc.
CEMENT
Cement is a very important binding material.
The name cement refers to the material manufactured from limestone
and clay and made available in powder form, which when mixed with
water can set to a hard durable mass even under water.
It is always measured by weight,
It is available in bags
b) Silica
It is also responsible for imparting strength to the cement.
c) Lime
It is also responsible for the strength characteristics of the cement.
d) Iron Oxide
This ingredient mainly imparts colour to the cement
It also goes into chemical combination and helps increase strength
and hardness to the cement.
WHAT IS HYDRATION?
Chemical reaction between water and cement compound is
known as hydration.
1. SETTING OF CEMENT
Is changing plastic state of cement to stiff solid state which is not so
strong enough and has a very small compressive strength.
3. INITIAL SETTING
Initial setting is a stage in the process of hardening, (stage when the
cement started gaining strength)
In short it can be said,
Initial setting of the cement is controlled by tricalcium aluminate,
C3A.
Early strength is controlled by tricalcium silicate, C3S
Strength of cement developing after 7-8days of its placement is
dependent on the amount of dicalcium silicate.