Trade Journals for the Concrete Industry

Dry concrete, also known as no-slump concrete and earth-moist concrete, is used to manufacture paving units and demands vibrocompressers to be molded. The features on its fresh state have influence on the production process, whereas the mix that are easily compacted demands less strength of the equipment and also will result on paving units that are more dense, with higher mechanical resistance and lower water absorption. However, there aren’t any test methods for the fresh state, and normally it is used empirical methods. Hence, on this paper it was develop a testing method to analyze the features of the no-slump concrete on its fresh state. The method also provides a specimen that allows to test the hardened state features. With this method is possible to obtain data on strength x time x displacement, as well as swelling, allowing to analyze which mix design is easily compacted and has less elastic recovery. To verify the method it was conducted tests using the mix design of a reference manufactured and afterwards these tests were compared with the paving units produced on the manufactured. The specimen produced on the laboratory reached 90% of mechanical resistance of the manufactured paving units, and lower values of water absorption. Thereby, it is possible to affirm that the testing method can be related to the production process and thus be used to verify modifications on the mix design of the concrete.