Professional Documents
Culture Documents
DOI: 10.5923/j.jce.20150503.03
Abstract This paper aim to evaluate the concrete produced locally in River Nile State (RNS) where the output results
lead to improve the work of casting the concrete in-situ in order to acquire the design values and raise the level of quality
control. A data concern the concrete casting in-situ in the RNS was collected by visiting a 24 sites included information
about the materials used in concrete such as cement, sand and gravel also information about the procedure followed for
quality control and the tests done for the concrete and materials and its results. Many samples of materials on sites were
collected and a lab test for each had been done. The study also include visiting of 20 sites constructed through past 10 years
and the available data had been collected. This paper adopted a criterion to classify the sites included by this study
according to the quality control. Statistical analysis had been done for the information collected and for the results obtained
from lab test. The study concluded that for more than 57% of the sites studied it is found that the quality control followed
for construction is fair and poor. Many reasons of that were summarized and the necessary recommendations were given.
Keywords Concrete Work, Quality Control, Mix Design, Concrete Materials Tests
1. Introduction
Sudan is developing country and its infrastructures are
under construction such as bridges, roads, water dams, etc.,
so the construction industry continues in expand in order to
meet the increase in population and the consequent increase
in the life requirements. In the near future is expected to
increase these facilities as well as the steps taken to achieve
peace and political stability that will attract foreign
investment to contribute in this area within Sudan.
Concrete is a composite material composed of coarse
granular embedded in a hard matrix of material (cement)
that fills the space between the aggregate particles and
water glues them together. The mixture when placed in
forms and. allowed to cure becomes hard like stone. The
hardening is caused by chemical action between water and
the cement and it continues for a long time, and
consequently the concrete grows stronger with age. The
strength, durability and other characteristics of concrete
depend upon the properties of its ingredients, on the
proportions of mix, the method of compaction and other
controls during placing, compaction and curing. In Sudan
most of construction companies do not pay attention to
adopt the correct methods for production the concrete, as
* Corresponding author:
fat470@yahoo.com (Fathelrahman M. Adam)
Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/jce
Copyright 2015 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved
68
Mohamed Y. Mustafa et al.: Evaluation of the Concrete Works Produced Locally in River Nile State
69
cement
Item
Course
Zone
Test of each Batch
Not Tested
Crushing Value
Acceptable
Grading
Not Acceptable
Well
Poor
Workmanship (50%)
Control of Mix Proportions (30%)
Item
Mix
Design
Type of Batching
Type of Vibration
By Volume
Relative
Wt. of
Item
Yes
No
By
Wt.
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
Batching
Plant or
Ready
Mix
Mech.
Manual
Slump
Meas-ured
Not
Meas-ured
Time Between*
Mixing &
Placing(Minutes)
<45
45-60
>60
Type of Vibration
Mech.
Manual
* The Time Limits Indicated are used for Normal Concrete without any additives., If concrete Admixtures are used, then these Limits are Amended Accordingly.
Mohamed Y. Mustafa et al.: Evaluation of the Concrete Works Produced Locally in River Nile State
70
Curing (20%)
Curing
Type & Method
Item
Spraying with
Water
(Intermittent)
continuously
Wet
Contractor's Samples
Period (Days)
7
6-4
3-2
<2
Repaired
Not
Always
Always
None
Relative Wt.
of Item
The percentage for the three items and their branches are detailed in Table 4.
Table 4. Site Evaluation Form
Site Details:
Details
According to the
Requirements
cement
8%
aggregate
12%
Preparing phase
30%
Executing phase
20%
Curing
20%
Compressive Strength
10%
Item No.
Description
Material specification
2
3
Percentage
Total
100%
Class
100 90
89 70
69 50
49 0
(2)
(3)
x 100
(
)2
According to the
Site Evaluation
(1)
Where:
n is the number of concrete cubes
i is the compressive strength of concrete cubes after
28-days where i the counter from 1 to n.
is the mean of the compressive strengths for concrete
cubes and can be calculated from the formula:
Class
3.4
12
3.5 4.0
13 15
4.1 5.5
16 18
> 5.5
> 18
71
24 sites
Percentages
20-sites
Percentage
All Sites
Percentages
A (Excellent)
21%
35%
12
27%
B (Good)
17%
15%
16%
C (Fair)
11
46%
15%
14
32%
D (Poor)
16%
35%
11
25%
Total
24
100%
20
100%
44
100%
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Mohamed Y. Mustafa et al.: Evaluation of the Concrete Works Produced Locally in River Nile State
6. Conclusions
A 24-sites under construction and 20-sites constructed
within 10 years past were studied in order to evaluate the
quality control of the concrete work in the River Nile State.
The evaluation have been done according to the data
collected that concern the quality control like material data
(cement, aggregate and fresh concrete) and technical data
about the types and methods used to execute the concrete
work from the mixing, handling and placing the concrete
and all functions accompanied to verify quality control like
compaction and curing and the necessary field and
laboratory tests. The evaluation had been done by adopting
total percentage for each site according to results of tests
and according to the technical method followed to verify
the quality control. A criterion has been used for classifying
the sites to classes according to the evaluation percentage
obtained for each site. A four classes were adopt that are A
for excellent QC, B for good QC, C for fair QC and D for
poor QC. A statistical analysis had been done based on
standard deviation and coefficient of variation and these
also used to classify the sites to the same classes. From the
results obtained we concluded that about 57% of the total
sites studied have QC under class B. This mean the QC is
weak and more attention must be think about in order to
verify as less a good QC by seeking about the reasons of
declining the QC and see how to avoid them and make
attention to the unskilled labor and using tools and types
that precise the work with anticipated to use in future the
ready mix concrete.
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