Concreting under extreme

environmental conditions

1
1 CONCRETE IN HOT AND COLD
CLIMATES

2
 Introduction
- Performance adversely affected unless
appropriate measures are taken to control it.

- Increase in temperature accelerates the rate of

hydration which leads to acelerated
development of early strength development.

- Decrease in temperature in general retards

rate of hydration which leads to a decrease in
early strength development.

- Situation may become further aggravated by

decrease of humidity in the atmosphere,
increase of wind or combinations of these. 3
 1.1 Concrete in Hot Weather
Defn :- any operation of concreting done at
atmospheric temperature above 40oC or
where the temperature of concrete at the
time of placing is expected beyond 40oC
may be categorized as Hot Weather
Concreting.

Climatic factor that affect such concreting:

- ambient temperature
- relative homidity
- Increase in wind velocity

4
- Effect of hot weather in concreting may be
summarized as:
a. Acceleraring setting
- Higher temperarure  rapid hardening 
accelerating setting  reduce the handling
time of concrete  lowering the strength of
hardened concrete.
- Workability of concrete decreases  water
demand increases with increase of
temperature.
- Addition of water without proper adjustment in
mix proportions adversely affects the ultimate
quality of concrete.
- Reports indicate, an approximately 25 mm
decrease in slump resulted from 11oC
increase 5
b. reduction in strength
- generally develops higher early strength than
normally produced concrete, but eventual
strengths are lower.
- Example on the influence of simultaneous
reduction in the relative humidity.

Temp. RH Age Relative Strength

23oC 100% 28 d 100%
23oC 60% 28 d 73%
38oC 25% 28 d 62%

- High temperature results in greater evaporation

and hence necessisates increase of mixing of
water, consequently reducing the strength.
6
c. Increase tendency to cracking
- rapid evaporation  plastic shrinkage cracking 
subsequent cooling of hardened concrete may
cause tensile stresses.
- Rate of evaporation depends:
i. Ambient temperature
ii. Relative humidity
iii. Wind speed
iv. Concrete temperature
- plastic shrinkage cracks can be very deep,
ranging in width between 0.1 and 3mm, and can
be quite short or as long as 1m.
- Once developed, they are very difficult to close
permanently.
7
d. Rapid evaporation during curing
- Hydration of cement can take place only in
water-filled capillaries  Loss of water by
evaporation from the capillaries shall be
prevented.
- Water lost internally by self-desication has
to
be replaced by water from outside.
- A rapid initial hydration results in a poor
microstructure of gel which is probably more
porous  a large proportion of the pores
remaining unfilled  lower strength.
8
e. Difficulty in controlling the air content

- Higher temperature  difficult to control the air

content in air-entrined concrete  adds
difficulty of controlling workability.
- for a given amount of air-entrained agent, hot
concrete entrains less air than does concrete at
normal temperature.

9
 Recommended Practices and
precautions
a. Temperature control of concrete ingredients.
- Aggregates may be protected from direct
sunrays by errecting temporary shades or
shelters over the aggregate stockpiles.
- Water can be sprinkled on the aggregate before
using them in concrete as the specific heat of
water is nearly five times that of common
aggregate (0.22)  very efficient in lowering
temperature of concrete.
- precooling of aggregates can be achieved at the
mixing stage by adding calculated quantity of
broken ice pieces as part of mixing water. 10
- A placing temperature of concrete as low as 10oC
is desireable but may well be impractical.
- Temperature (T) of the freshly mixed concrete
can be easily calculated from that of the
ingredients using the following expression:-
0.22 (TaWa + TcWc) + TwWw
T=
0.22 (Wa + Wc) + Ww
- Note that actual temperature of the concrete will
be somwhat higher than indicated by the above expression
due to :-
i. Mechanical work done during mixing
ii. Development of the heat of hydration of cement
iii. Heat transfer from the ambient air and formwork11
b. Proportioning of concrete mix
- Mix should be designed to have minimum
cement content consistent with other
functional
requirements.
- Cement with low heat of hydration should be
preferred than those having greater fineness and
heat of hydration.
- Use of water-reducing or set retarding
admixtures is beneficial.
example:- W/C = 0.5, Agg/Cem = 5.6
Drop of 1oc in temperature of fresh concrete can be
obtained by lowering the temperature either of cement
12
by
 1.2 Concreting in Cold Climate
- The durability of hardened concrete is affected when it is
subjected to repeated cycles of freezing and thawing.
- Hydration of cement occurs even at low temperatures
down to about -10oC.
- If concrete which has not yet set is allowed to freeze, the
action of frost is somewhat similar to that in a saturated
soil subjected to heaving, i.e. the mixing water freezes 
increase in the overall volume of concrete.
- As the water freezes, no water will be available for
chemical reactions  the setting and hardening of
concrete are delayed.
- If concrete freezes immediately after it has been placed
setting will not have taken place  no cement paste to be
disrupted by the formation of ice  as the low
temperature continues, the process of setting will remain
suspended. 13
 - When thawing takes place, concrete should be revibrated
 concrete sets and harden without loss of strength.
- If freezing takes place after the concrete has set but
before it has developed an appreciable strength, the
expansion associated with the formation of ice causes
disruption and an irreparable loss of strength.
- If the concrete has acquired sufficient strength, it can
resist the freezing temperature without damage, not only
by virtue of the higher resistance to the pressure of the
ice but also because a large part of mixing water will
have become combined with the cement or located in
small pores, and would thus not to be able to freeze.

NOTE :- In general, the more advanced the hydration of

cement
and the higher the strength of concrete, the less
vulnerable it is to frost. 14
 Concreting Operation
- When the air temperature is continuously below 0oC, the
weather can be unarguably described as cold.
- Cold weather is obtained when two conditions exist:
i. When the average of the maximum and minimum
air
temperatures recorded on three consecutive days
is
less than 5oC.
ii. When the air temperature during at least 12 hrs. in
any 24-hour period is 10oC or lower.
- Under such circumstances, normal weight concrete should
not be placed unless its temperature is at least 13oC for
thin section ( 300 mm) or at least 5oC when the minimum
dimension of the concrete element is at least 1.8 m. 15
 Proposed Recommendation

- Advantage can be taken by using rapid-hardening cement

and rich mixes with low w/c ratio, and of the use of cement
with high C3S and C3A contents.
- Accelerators can be used but chloride must be avoided if
steel is present in concrete.
- Heating the mix ingredients to attain the minimum
temperature cited for the mix.
- Water shall not be heated to a temperature 60 – 80
o
C
 flash set of the cement may result.
- Advisable that aggregate shall not be heated above
52oC.
- Use of anti freeze admixture (K2CO3), air entrained
admixture.

16
 - Desirable for the concrete to set at, say, 7 – 21 oC.
- The temperature 7oC applies when the air is no lower
than -1oC and the concrete element is thick.
- The value 21oC applies when the air is cooler than
-18oC and the concrete section is less than 300 mm.

Note:- - Placing against frozen ground should not be

permitted and the formwork should, if possible,
be pre-heated.
- Following placement, concrete must be
protected
from freezing for at least 24 hrs.
- Various types of insulation of concrete shall be
adopted.
17