A NEW VISCOSITY MODIFYING AGENT (VMA) FOR LOW FINES CONTENT SELF-CONSOLIDATING CONCRETE (SCC)

摘要

Self-consolidating concrete has gained widespread application in the precast industry,where its advantages are easily verified and put to a profitable use. But the picture is quite different in the ready mixed concrete industry where SCC use is still quite low.Generally, when the ready mixed concrete producer has to supply a self compacting concrete, the strength is over designed for the application. This is due the high fines content necessary to achieve the necessary stability of the SCC. These fines are usually provided by cement and pozzolanic materials that are readily available at the plant. The excess cement and fines content adds to the production costs. The reduction of the total fines content would lead to a decrease in the unit cost of the concrete, as long as the necessary SCC properties are maintained.As such, a new state of the art viscosity modifying agent (VMA) is presented. This new VMA makes it now possible to achieve formerly unseen robustness in highly flowable SCC mixture, which contains a low frees content.