4th Edition

Concrete Mix Design, Quality Control and Specification

By Ken W. Day, James Aldred, Barry Hudson Copyright 2014
    349 Pages 64 B/W Illustrations
    by CRC Press

    350 Pages 64 B/W Illustrations
    by CRC Press

    The nature of concrete is rapidly changing, and with it, there are rising concerns. Thoroughly revised and updated, this fourth edition of Concrete Mix Design, Quality Control and Specification addresses current industry practices that provide inadequate durability and fail to eliminate problems with underperforming new concrete and defective testing.

    Many specifications now require additional criteria in an attempt to improve durability or other properties. This book discusses the trend towards adding performance requirements to existing prescriptive specifications. It also explores the matter of prescription versus performance specification and especially the specification of non-strength-related performance such as durability.

    What’s new in the Fourth Edition:

    • Examines water-to-cement ratio as a declining criterion of quality and durability
    • Discusses the diminishing availability of suitable natural sands and growing industry concerns regarding the environmental impact of their use
    • Considers advances in concrete admixtures and their ever-increasing use
    • Advocates reliability of testing as a vital feature of the shift from prescriptive to performance specifications
    • Addresses cement replacement materials as they relate to greenhouse gas and sustainability

    Concrete Mix Design, Quality Control and Specification explores producing, designing, controlling, or specifying concrete, and addresses issues related with sustainability and the impact of new concrete materials such as ready mixed geopolymers, magnesium oxide, and calcium carbonate. The text is an ideal resource for concrete technologists, producers and specifiers, and contractors on large projects

    Advice to specifiers

    Cementitious Materials

    Aggregates for concrete

    Chemical admixtures

    Properties of concrete

    Specification

    Testing

    Mix design

    Statistical analysis

    Quality control

    Unchanging concepts

    Trouble shooting

    Concrete future

    Biography

    Ken W. Day has, in his long career, held positions as a university lecturer and a structural designer, and in production, R&D, and management in the precast and ready mixed concrete industries. He ran his own consultancy for thirty years.

    James Aldred is Technical Director at AECOM, one of the world’s largest engineering firms. He was the Independent Verifier for the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

    Barry Hudson is Director of Competency Center Materials at Heidelberg Cement in charge of concrete and aggregates operations for several major ready mix organisations in several countries.

    "It is imperative to promote the use of durable and sustainable concretes having adequate and sensitive specifications in order to avoid any waste of materials. This book … can be considered as a basic tool to achieve such a goal. It has been conceived and written by three great engineers who have great experience. It presents very clearly what to do, how to do it and when to do it for better concrete practice."
    — Pierre-Claude Aïtcin, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada

    "Mr. Day is a pioneer in the use of CUSUM charts for concrete test data analysis and Multigrade, Multivariable, Cusum QC. The trend towards concrete performance based specifications dealt with in a book perhaps for the first time Mr Day has educated hundreds of concrete quality professionals worldwide The very broad scope for the book and knowledgeable authors makes this book a must buy."
    ––Karthik H. Obla, National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, Silver Spring, Maryland