Moulding:

Preparation: Begin by cleaning the cube moulds to ensure there's no debris or old concrete
residue that could affect the new pour.
Coating: Apply a thin layer of mould release agent to the inner surfaces of the moulds to
prevent the concrete from sticking.
Mixing: Prepare the concrete mix according to the desired strength and consistency
specifications. This typically involves mixing cement, aggregates, water, and sometimes
additives in the correct proportions.
Pouring: Fill the cube moulds with the freshly mixed concrete, ensuring that they are
completely filled without any air voids. Use a tamping rod to compact the concrete and
remove any trapped air bubbles.
Finishing: Smooth the surface of the concrete with a trowel to create a level, even finish.
Demoulding:

Waiting Period: Allow the concrete to set and cure in the moulds for a specified period,
typically around 24 hours. This allows the concrete to harden sufficiently for demoulding
without risking damage.
Removing Moulds: Carefully dismantle the cube moulds, taking care not to disturb the
freshly cast concrete cubes. This may involve loosening screws or releasing clamps,
depending on the type of mould used.
Handling: Gently handle the demoulded concrete cubes to avoid chipping or cracking. It's
important to treat them with care, especially in the early stages when they may still be
relatively fragile.

Curing: After demoulding, the concrete cubes should be cured in a moist environment to
promote further strength development and prevent premature drying. This typically
involves storing them in a curing chamber or wrapping them in wet burlap and plastic
sheeting.
Both moulding and demoulding processes are critical for producing accurate and reliable
test specimens for assessing the strength and quality of the concrete. Any errors or
mishandling during these steps can compromise the integrity of the cubes and lead to
inaccurate test results.

[2:01 am, 17/05/2024] 😉: 1.7.4 Water

The water is an important ingredient of concrete which is actually reacts with cement.
Water used for preparing the concrete and curing the concrete for preparation ofconcrete
paver blocks should be free from oil, acid, alkalinities, clay and organic impurities. Salt free
water used in this research work since the saltwater leads to decrease the concrete's
strength and durability properties. The water is added to the mixture of course aggregates,
fine aggregates with cement and the quality of water used to be good and having the pH
value of 7.
[2:01 am, 17/05/2024] 😉: Take a clean, dry pycnometer and determine its empty weight
(W1 g).

Take a clean sample of fine aggregate (about 1kg) for which specific gravity is

to be find out and transfer that to the pycnometer and weight (W2 g). The

aggregates finer than 6.3mm are taken.

Pour distilled water in the pycnometer with aggregate sample at the temperature at 27 °C,
to just immerse sample.

Immediately after immersion, remove the entrapped air from the sample hy shaking or
rotating the pycnometer, placing a finger on the hole at the top of the sealed pycnometer.

Wipe out the outer surface of pycnometer. Now the pycnometer is completely. filled up
with water till the hole at the top, and after confirming that there is no more entrapped air
in pycnometer, weight it (W3 g)

Transfer the aggregate of the pycnometer into a try care being taken to ensure that all the
aggregate is transferred. Clean the pycnometer.

Refill the pycnometer with distilled water up to the top of the pycnometer, without any
entrapped air. It should be completely dry from outside and take the weight (W4 g)

For mineral filler, specific gravity bottle is used and the material is filled up to one-third of
the capacity of bottle. The rest of the process of determining specific gravity is similar to the
one described above.

[2:03 am, 17/05/2024] 😉: 4.1 Introduction

The compressive strength of cement mortars is determined in order to verify whether the
cement conforms to 15 specifications and whether it will be able to develop the required
compressive strength of concrete.

After the slump test was conducted the Group used the same concrete batch as calculated
from the mix design calculation to prepare for the concrete cube specimen. Three concrete
cubes were prepared and had to be tested after seven days to determine the compression
strength.

4.2 Aim

To determine the compressive strength of standard coment mortar cubes compacted by

Exam Pad, Calculator & Pencil

Construction Materials Text Book refer to pages 115 to 117 for mix design.

Cubes mauid

Weighting machine

Curing tanic

Concrete compression machine

Scoop, steel rod

Material Batching

150 cm x 150 mm x 150 mm standard cube mould was used for cube test.

The group ensured that apparatus and associated equipment were clean before test and
free from hardened concrete and superfluous water

The cube mould was assemble correctly and all nuts tightened, the moulds were then
coated oil on the Internal faces.

[2:03 am, 17/05/2024] 😉: The mould was placed on level firm ground and Filled with
sampled concrete in three corisecutive layers Each layer of concrete was compacted by
tamping 35 times the whole surface area with the tamping rod

The surplus concrete was removed after the mould was fully filled and top surface was then
flushed with trowel to level with the mould

The marked with the identification number [UNISA 3) with a paper

The cubes surface were placed free from vibration in a safe cupboard for about 24 hours.
On the following day (26 May 2017) the mould were stripped off.

The cubes were placed and submerge in a thermostatically controlled curing tank for seven
days

Testing for cube tost was carned out on the 7th day (22 June 2017).

Before Determine the unit weight of the specimen the cubes were wiped to dry and sand
grains cleaned for test surfaces and the group carefully weighing each cubical specimen and
each mass recorded on Table 3 below
The total maximum load as indicated by the testing machine were recorded and are
reflecting on the table 3 below.

4.4 Cube Compression Strength Results

Specimen size: 150mm x 150mm

No. of cubes: 3 Cubes (Three for 7 days Compression)

Area for each cube: 0.15m x 0.15m -0.0225m

[2:04 am, 17/05/2024] 😉: Casting, Moulding and Demoulding of the Specimens

This process generally occurs in dealing with the 4-step process.

Preparation of Cubes

After the sample, has been mixed, the moulds are previously cleaned thoroughly with the
lubricating agent. Immediately the cube moulds are filled with the sample material and the
compaction is done with the help of tamping rod. So, that any ropped air voids left in the
mouldcomes out otherwise these might reduce the strength of the concrete cube. Care
must he taken while the compaction of the cubes of concrete. Because over compaction
might cause the segregation of the aggregates and the replaced caps along with the cement
mix. The former condition can reduce the final compressive strength of the concrete. The
size of the mould (cubes taken is about "300*300*300 mm.

Figure 14: Preparation of Moulds

Compacting with compacting Bar and Vibration

Three layers of the concrete mix is provided for the filling of cabe of equal depth.
Compacting is done with the help of tamping rod after cach layer of 380mm long and
weighing about 1.5 kg During the compaction of each layer, the strokes of the tamping rod
should be

[2:04 am, 17/05/2024] 😉: distributed evenlyover the surface of concrete and each layer is
compacted to its full required depth. For the better compaction of the mix, in the mould 25
strokes are provided. After the 3 layers are completed, the end (top) layer in levelled to the
surface of the cube and placed on the mechanical vidrator form the uniform distribution of
the concrete mix. To attain a good texture over the top layer, proper finishing is done.
Vibration process should be ecased as soon as the surface of the concretemix in the cube
appears smooth and all the entrapped air appears on the surface of the cube. Oncethe
specimen has been compacted, it should not be left standing on the same bench as another
specimen that is being compacted. If this is done, some vibration will be must be passed on
to the first specimen and it will be more compacted than the other.

Figure 15: Compacting of Concrete using Vibratory Table and Tamping Rod Demoulding the
Test Cubes.

Figure 16: De Moulding of Cubes

[2:05 am, 17/05/2024] 😉: The demoulding of the cubes moulded has done after 24-30 hrs.
so as to attain a required compressive strength. If in any of the mould has not attained the
sufficient strength for the process of demoulding, furtherly more 12hrs are delayed for this
former process. Care must he taken

while removing the concrete from the mould apart otherwise cracks might occur during this
process which might lead to the strength reducing of the concrete cube. After demoulding
everycube, zach cube is marked with a legible isdentification on the top or botton using a
waterproof crayon or some phosphorus paint. The mould mast be cleaned thoroughly
ensuring that grease or dirt should not be collected between the faces of the flanges
otherwise gapes between the cubeplates might occur resulting in an irregular shape of the
concrete cubes.

Curing

Cubes must be cured properly before they are tested. Only the cuhes are to be used for
their respective testing or else they are must be placed in the water curing tank or in a
moust room. The curing temperature of the water in the curing tank should be maintained
(27-30) C. If the curing is done in a, moist mom the relative humidity should be maintained
at no less than 95%. Curing must he continued as long as possible till the time of testing.

Figure 17: Caring for 24 hours

[2:05 am, 17/05/2024] 😉: 5.2.2 SIEVE ANLYSIS

Sieve analysis of fine aggregates is one of the most important tests performed on- site.
Aggregates are inert materials that are mixed with binding materials such as cement or lime
for the manufacturing of mortaror concrete. It is also used as fillers in mortar and concrete.
Aggregates size varies from several inches to the size of the smallest grain of sand. The
Aggregates fine coarse) generally occupy 60% to 75% of the conerete volume or 70% to
85% by mass and strongly influence the concrete's freshly mixed and hardened properties,
mixture proportions, and economy. All Aggregates pass IS 4,75 mm sieve is classified as fine
Aggregates All aggregate technicians use the sieve analysis (gradation test) to determines
the gradation (the particle size distribution, by size, within a given sample) in order to
determine compliance with design, production control requirements, and verification
specifications.

5.2.3 MOISTURE CONTENT