What should be paid attention to when using polycarboxylate superplasticizer for C30 and below concrete?

Russia's insistence on paying for Russian gas in rubles has rattled European countries: Greece held an emergency meeting of suppliers, the Dutch government would urge consumers to use less gas, and the French energy regulator told consumers not to panic. Russian gas meets one-third of Europe's annual energy needs.

Russia said they could expand their demand for ruble payments for other commodities, including oil, grain, fertilizer, coal, and metals, which raised the risk of recession in Europe and the US. 

Moscow is expected to unveil its ruble payment plan in early April, but it said it would not immediately ask buyers to pay for gas in rubles.  

Western countries have said paying in rubles would be a breach of contract, and renegotiation could take months or longer. This uncertainty has pushed commodity market prices higher.

The supply and prices of other commodities like the pce powder could also be affected.

Polycarboxylate superplasticizer has more advantages than traditional naphthalene and aliphatic superplasticizer in mixing high strength grade concrete, but its advantages of high water reduction cannot be brought into full play when the strength is not greater than C30.

In order to make polycarboxylate superplasticizer play a better role in low strength grade concrete, attention should be paid to:

Reduce the solid content of polycarboxylic acid superplasticizer

The higher the solid content of polycarboxylic acid superplasticizer is, the lower the content of polycarboxylic acid superplasticizer is. In the preparation of medium and low strength concrete, if polycarboxylic acid with high solid content is used, the admixture content is often too low, the weight of admixture increases 0.5kg/m or water consumption increases 5kg/m, concrete mixture will change greatly, sometimes segregation, bleeding, consolidation, and even pipe plugging during construction, on the contrary, reduce 0.5kg/m superplasticizer or water consumption reduce 5kg/m. The workability of concrete mixture is also difficult to be guaranteed. Therefore, when using polycarboxylic acid superplasticizer to prepare medium and low strength concrete, it is appropriate to use polycarboxylic acid superplasticizer with solid content of 8% ~ 10% (when the content is 1.8%, the water reducing rate is controlled at about 20%). Low solid content polycarboxylic acid reduces the sensitivity of mixing amount and water consumption. When the moisture content of sand and gravel fluctuates, it can effectively prevent the workability of concrete from fluctuating, which is convenient for production operators to control.

Select the appropriate water consumption to ensure the necessary slurry volume

Polycarboxylic acid superplasticizer has low content (0.15%-0.35%) and high water reduction rate (water reduction can be up to 35% or even higher at high content). In terms of reducing water consumption, polycarboxylate superplasticizer has more advantages than traditional naphthalene and aliphatic superplasticizer. The water-binder ratio of medium and low strength concrete is often on the high side, for example, the water-binder ratio of C30 is 0.42-0.45 and that of C20 is 0.5-0.55. If the water consumption is reduced excessively through high water reduction rate, the amount of concrete cementitious material will often be reduced, and the amount of concrete mixture paste will be insufficient, so it is difficult to maintain the good workability of concrete mixture and bring difficulties to concrete construction. Therefore, when using polycarboxylate superplasticizer, appropriate water consumption should be selected to ensure a certain amount of pulp, such as: C30 water consumption 165-175 kg C20 C20 water consumption 175-185 kg C15 C15 water consumption 180~190kg/m. When using polycarboxylate superplasticizer to prepare medium and low strength concrete, attention should be paid to selecting the matching amount according to the water consumption, so as to make the concrete mixture have good workability. At the same time, attention should be paid to properly adjust the sand ratio to maintain the water retention and fluidity of low strength grade concrete.

Pay attention to the adjustment of aggregate gradation and voidage

The paste content of low strength concrete whose strength grade is lower than C30 is generally low. in order to make the concrete mixture have good workability, attention should be paid to the adjustment of aggregate gradation so as to reduce the aggregate voidage. The lower the voidage of the aggregate, the less the paste used to fill the gap between the aggregate, and the larger the paste wrapped on the surface of the aggregate, the more conducive to the improvement of the workability of the concrete mixture. For example, the voidage of pebbles is reduced from 43% to 38%. Due to the reduction of 50L/m in the paste filling the coarse aggregate voids of concrete, the concrete mixture paste is equivalent to increasing 50L/m, which greatly improves the workability of concrete.

Pay attention to the change of sand fineness modulus

Due to the small amount of low strength concrete paste, when polycarboxylic acid superplasticizer is used, the inclusiveness of concrete paste is poor, the sand fineness modulus should be reduced appropriately, the medium sand with sand fineness modulus less than 0.315 should be selected, and the particle content of 20% should be guaranteed. When the voidage of coarse aggregate of concrete is large, the concrete is prone to the phenomenon of slurry running and stone leakage, and the concrete has no cohesion. At this time, the content of fine sand should be increased appropriately, and when there is no fine sand to adjust the fineness modulus of mixed sand, the sand ratio can be increased by about 2%. To improve workability. However, the amount of fine sand with small fineness modulus should not be too large to prevent the increase of aggregate specific surface area, the increase of water demand and the deterioration of concrete fluidity. In addition, when preparing medium and low strength concrete, it is not suitable to use coarse sand with high particle size > 1.18 because of the small amount of paste. This kind of sand should cause divergence of concrete mixture, poor cohesion and water retention, and the production is difficult to control.

Polycarboxylic acid superplasticizer should pay attention to compound water retention and thickening components

The slump-retaining effect of polycarboxylate superplasticizer is greatly affected by the content of polycarboxylic acid superplasticizer in the medium and low strength concrete whose cementitious material is lower than 350kg/m, but a large amount of polycarboxylate superplasticizer is easy to make the mixture segregate and bleed water. Therefore, when the concrete mixture has the tendency of segregation, air entraining agent or thickener can be added to the pumping agent to improve the water retention and cohesion of concrete, and polycarboxylic acid superplasticizer containing viscosity modifier can also be used.

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The secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council said the US arms lease bill to Ukraine has not yet been implemented. This is still in the process and could start from July to September 2022, he said. The approval of this bill is a very positive decision for Ukraine. Aid to Ukraine through lend-lease will eventually come, the question is when.  

In an effort to speed up the supply of weapons to Ukraine, President Joe Biden signed a defense lend-lease bill for Ukraine at the White House on May 9.

Nippon Steel, JFE Steel, and Kobe Steel will work together to develop a steel-making process that uses hydrogen to reduce carbon dioxide emissions without using blast furnaces. Small test furnaces will be built at Nippon Steel's Hwazaki Research and Development Center (Kamiki city, Ibaraki Prefecture) and JFE's East Japan Steel In Chiba (Chiba City). The two test furnaces, which will be operational by 2024-25, will confirm whether ore with high levels of impurities can also operate smoothly.

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