Author(s)

Mohammed Hatem Mohammed^1,2*, Nadhir Al-Ansari¹, Sven Knutsson¹

¹Deparment of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå,Sweden.
²Department of Civil Engineering, University of Mosul, Mosul, Iraq.

This study describes the performance of concrete in fresh state, intended for sealing deep bore-holes in the host rock of radioactive repositories. Set of different paste volumes, combinations of water-to-powder ratios and fine aggregate contents have been performed within the frame of this study. The main objective was to search for tendencies, logical connections and phenomena that occur for different combination of materials regarding the fluidity and segregation and mainly the effect from the (paste) or fine aggregate content. It shall be pointed out that this investigation is a suggestion on how concrete can be optimized using two simple test methods based on changing the paste content. The results highlighted the importance of having sufficient amounts of filler and cement paste for separate and carry larger particles, which gives the concrete good workability and fluidity at casting. It was concluded that the slump behaviors can be optimized based on the adjustments of the superplastisizer dosage.

Concrete, Paste Content, Workability, Talc, Void Volume

Mohammed, M. , Al-Ansari, N. and Knutsson, S. (2014) Enhancement of Workability of Cement-Poor Concrete by Optimizing Paste Content. Engineering, 6, 869-876. doi: 10.4236/eng.2014.613080.