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I was born in Pretoria, South Africa in 1991. I lived there for 16 years before my dad got offered a job in Norfolk, Virginia in the United States. I immigrated to the States with an open mind set and ready to take on a new life. I was pushed back a year and retook ninth grade in a new langauge. I am currently a Sophmore at Virginia Tech and i am studying to become a Construction Manager.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Pouring Concrete.

Today Blacksburg has allowed construction to continue along without delayes.  Blacksburg is so unpredictable with the weather, you never know when a random storm will come through and flood the town.  Today at 9am it was about 54 degrees.  It is not the greatest conditions to pour concrete but it is good enough for Joe, the owner of Castle's Kettle and Pub.  The schedule is very tight and construction had to continue.  Joe scheduled for the concrete truck and crew to come.  I am not sure who did the formwork for the walk way because I got to the site and it was already installed (Figure 1 and 2)

                Figure 1                                                               Figure 2

As you can see in Figure 1 and 2 the aggregate (crushed limestone) was already laid down along with the formwork.  The significance of the formwork is to box in the concrete.

Just to show you another way to look at formwork (Example).  I saw this in my Construction Principles class and it helped me understand.

Example.
Once the concrete truck showed up, the Fenseca Concrete crew laid down the reinforced steel.  The reinforced steel came in a pre manufactured square of wire, almost like a mesh (Figure 3). The reinforcement keeps the concrete from cracking, and increases the tensile strength of the concrete.  After the wire mesh was laid out, the concrete truck started pouring concrete into wheel barrows.  There were one worker who just walked concrete up and down.  The concrete was then poured out of the wheel barrows and into the formed pathway. See Figure 3.

Figure 3


There was another worker dedicated to spread out the concrete so that it was close to being level to the formwork. In my experience with pouring concrete I was told to add wooden "stubs" through out the area.  These stubs were just a little lower than the formwork.  The reason for the stubs is for when you pour the concrete you can see how far you are from being level.  However, the Fenseca Crew did not do this.  I added that detail because for a bigger jog, such as a driveway, you could use this.  I think the reason the crew did not use extra stubs is because the pathways was narrow enough for them to use a long pieces of lumber to screed the concrete.  Screeding is when you are using a flat piece of lumber or aluminum to get the proper grade or slope for the concrete.  In Figure 4 below you can see what it looks like to screed the concrete.

Figure 4


Once the person screeded the concrete another worker floated the concrete, as you shown in Figure 5.  Floating concrete is when you smoothen/ finish the concrete.  The most common tool used to float concrete is a bull float (Figure 5)

Figure 5


After the whole pathway was floated the concrete was left to dry for several hours.  Once the concrete was dry enough so that a worker could apply a portion of his weight the stamping began.  It was actually very interesting to watch.  The crew member would use this rubber mat and place it on the concrete and then place the other around it just like puzzles.  Once the mats where placed the workers would apply pressure on it so the mat would imprint the concrete. See Figure 6.  

Figure 6


As you can tell through these blogs Castle's Kettle and Pub is really coming along.  A lot of things that I am learning in class I am seeing here.  In class we learned that concrete is a combination of Portland cement, aggregate and water.  We also learned that there is different types of aggregate that can be used such as course (crushed stone or gravel) and fine( sand) aggregate.  In good concrete you want a combination of both.  The nice thing about concrete is that it is easy to work with, it is strong and very durable.

I hope you enjoyed the blog, and all the details.
Thank you for ready and all the best,
Mic

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