Water amount is the most prominent factor that affects the workability of freshly laid concrete. Workability is essentially the measure of how easy fresh concrete flow in between the voids.
If concrete workability is more than in the same manner concrete get in to the voids easily and in case when workablility of concrete is not that much, then concrete didn’t fill in the weight of all the voids. And in return many voids left in concrete that decrease the strength of concrete.
If the amount of water in fresh concrete is more than this will gives concrete, a better flow ability, ease of manipulation and handling and also a well compacted concrete after hardening. This shows that the higher the amount water is significant for freshly laid concrete. But the higher amount of water also has some negative effects too.
When water contents in fresh concrete increases then with the same proportion chances of segregation and bleeding increases.
Reason Of segregation In Concrete
This is because, when the amount of water in concrete increases than in returns fluidity of concrete increases. Now when the fluidity of concrete increases then as a result density of concrete decreases and when this happens than heavy aggregates settle down and lightweight aggregates moves to the upper surface of concrete and thus a non-uniform distribution of strength occurs in the cross-section of concrete.
Solution To Overcome bleeding In Concrete
For a proper homogenous concrete consider following points in mind while evaluating water content using mix proportions.
- Take at least that much amount of water, which will be required for filling voids inside the particles.
- Take an extra amount also which will be absorbed on the surface of particles.
- Take also some extra amount of water that will lubricate the particles of sand, cement, and aggregates.
- If only that much amount of water is added to the concrete during batching, then chances of segregation and bleeding will be minimized.
