Compressing: Revealing the Concrete Truth

Overview

Objectives/Goals My objective was to determine which mixture proportion, with the dominating ingredient either gravel or sand, will give the most strength when compressed. Methods/Materials Four different mixture proportion groups were mixed with ten tubes in each group. Two groups contained more gravel than sand. The other two groups contained more sand than gravel. All tubes had the constant water content, Portland Cement, and types of aggregates. From intervals of seven days, about two tubes were taken from each group and were cracked every week using a hydraulic jack. The strength was measured using a pressure gage. From there,data were used to determine weakest to strongest groups. Results The group with significant amount of gravel over sand in the mixture proportion proved to be the strongest. The second strongest group, despite having more sand than gravel, was strong due to the fact that it was workable for manual mixing. The other two groups were not as strong because of either more sand than gravel ratio or bad mixing. Conclusions/Discussion More gravel than sand in a concrete mixture can only be effective in terms of strength when there is significant amount in comparison to the two different sized aggregates. Proper mixing, clean ingredients, and right amount of moisture for aggregates will produce strong, durable,workable, and good looking concrete.

Competition history

• CSEF 2004 Structural Capability & Strength of Materials (Junior Division Only) · Entry J1802

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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