Characteristic Strength of Concrete

C oncrete uses different constituents like coarse aggregate, fine aggregate, water, plasticisers, etc. All of the components come in different variety, and thus the concrete prepared from the same mixture and taken from the same tray can have significantly varying compressive strengths. This variation can be controlled by assuring quality control at the site. Some ways to have reasonable quality control on the concrete mix can be the following: Controlling the size of aggregates by proper sieve analysis. For coarse aggregates, there are tests like flakiness test and elongation test. For fine aggregates, bulking of sand should be in a reasonable range. Water content should be proper. Mixing of components should be uniform. The graph becomes more and more flatter when quality control is more miserable at the site. If quality control is better, then a sharp peak can be observed. One thing can be concluded that if more specimens are near average compressive strength, your mix is bette...