Best Practices for Concrete Pumping

Pumping is one of the major placement techniques used in the concrete industry to deliver concrete from the mixing truck to the formwork. Although concrete pumping has been used to place concrete since the 1960s, there is still a lack of exact knowledge supported by research evidence as to what affects concrete pumpability and how pumping changes concrete properties. A three-phase research study was carried out to (1) investigate performance of pumped concrete in field conditions, (2) identify concrete properties affecting pumpability, and (3) assess the effects of pumping on the concrete air void system. In the first phase of the research program, six Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) project sites were visited during the summer of 2015, and concrete was sampled before and after pumping. In addition to measuring fresh concrete properties as well as performing hardened air void analysis of all sampled mixtures, rheological and tribological tests were performed on sampled concrete. The second phase of the study consisted of a full-scale controlled pumping experiment. During the experiment, three different concrete mixtures were pumped, and both fresh and hardened properties of the concrete were determined. Additionally, the pumping system was equipped with strain gauges to measure pumping pressures. Finally, the third phase of the study consisted of measuring the rheological and tribological properties of 35 concrete mixtures in order to determine the effect of various concrete components on pumpability.

• Record URL:
  http://dmsweb.ksdot.org/AppNetProd/docpop/docpop.aspx?clienttype=html&docid=9750831
• Summary URL:
  http://dmsweb.ksdot.org/AppNetProd/docpop/docpop.aspx?clienttype=html&docid=9750832
• Corporate Authors:

  Kansas State University Transportation Center

  Kansas State University
  Department of Civil Engineering
  Manhattan, KS  United States  66506

  Kansas Department of Transportation

  Bureau of Research
  2300 SW Van Buren Street
  Topeka, KS  United States  66611-1195
• Authors:
  • Riding, Kyle A
  • Vosahlik, Jan
  • Feys, Dimitri
  • Malone, Travis
  • Lindquist, Will
• Publication Date: 2016-12

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Appendices; Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 122p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air voids; Best practices; Properties of materials; Pumped concrete; Rheological properties
• Uncontrolled Terms: Concrete pumping; Pumping pressure
• Geographic Terms: Kansas
• Subject Areas: Construction; Highways; Materials;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01622263
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: K-TRAN: KSU-14-2
• Contract Numbers: C1995
• Files: TRIS, ATRI, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Jan 9 2017 5:16PM