TITLE: Determination of the water-cement ratio of concrete using rainwater

as the mixing water

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

OVERVIEW

“Concrete is the mixture of pastes and aggregates, or rocks. The paste composed of Portland
cement and water, coats the surface of the fine (small) and coarse (larger) aggregates. Through a
chemical reaction called hydration, the paste hardens and gains strength to form the rock-like
mass known as concrete. Normally, a mix is about 10 to 15 percent cement, 60 to 75 percent
aggregate and 15 to 20 percent water.“ (How to Make Concrete. Retrieved from
www.cement.org/cement-concrete-basics/how-conrete-is-made)

Concrete is the most used or the most versatile building material, it is used in building
residential, towers, roads and many more infrastructures. Concrete is composed of the aggregates
(fine or course) and of course the cement and water which forms the paste. In our generation,
practicality in households has been a big consideration especially in building houses and any
other construction applications. Finding a way to lessen the expenses would be a great
contribution and would be helpful especially to the poor.

Water plays a big role in the lives of human beings and of course in construction. According
to Government of India Ministry of Water Resources (2012), it is seen that the use of potable
water is further causing scarcity of water and that too in highly urbanized and populated areas, as
these areas have the potential and need to expand. In addition, they said that almost all codes of
concrete and mixing water indicate that constructional activities not essentially need fresh or
potable water.

As for this, alternative water resources could also be a great source that can be used as the
mixing water for the making of concrete. Without any doubt there are really cases or situations
that define

In fact, Abrams (1924) performed experiments to 68 various non-potable water samples

including sea, alkali, mine, mineral and bog waters and highly polluted sewage and industrial
wastes on mortar and concrete specimens. This is a proof of using other water sources either
from natural or man-made waste aside from the tap water or the ordinary clean water used in
making concrete. Aside from Abrams, there are also other people from the 1900’s to research
about using other water in the making of concrete. Harold H. Steinour (1960) also tested
different samples of water and know if it would be suitable in the mixing concrete. Joo-Hwa Tay
et al. (1987) studied the use of reclaimed wastewater in concrete.

Philippines being surrounded by water and being a tropical country, water is abundant and
can be utilize even more and can be used in the field of construction. We, researchers use
rainwater as the alternative mixing water in the making of concrete. Since Philippines is a
country of two seasons, rainy season could be a great help to the construction field of the
country. Using of rainwater as the mixing water could make a difference.

Quality of Water

“Almost any natural water that is drinkable and has no pronounced taste or odor may be
used as mixing for concrete. Excessive impurities in mixing water not only my affect setting time
and concrete strength, but also can cause efflorescence, staining, corrosion of reinforcement,
volume instability, and reduced durability. Concrete mixture specifications usually set limits on
chlorides, sulfates, alkalis, and solids in mixing water unless tests can be performed to determine
the effect the impurity have on the final concrete.” (How to Make Concrete. Retrieved from
www.cement.org/cement-concrete-basics/how-conrete-is-made)

Water used in concretes must be clear from any impurities that might cause several
deficiencies. Normally, distilled water is used since it is treated and impurities are eliminated.
other forms of water aside from distilled water and underground water, can be treated to be in its
most efficient form. In our research

According to Kucche, Sadgir and Jamkar (2015), there are certain effects of the impurities
present in water and it may be a positive or a negative effect, some may improve the concrete
properties and some may harm the concrete decreasing the compressive strength reducing long
term strength of concrete cause strains to the concrete etc. Since impurities in water varies
depending on the place, time, environment and human interference it is difficult to draw
conclusions in mixing or curing concrete. So to possibly succeed in using specific water it is
advisable to use a proper mix design for an acceptable tolerance limit of water’s impurities.
(International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 5, Issue 1, January 2015)

Relating to our study, identifying the proper mix design of the components of the concrete
is best to do to lessen and decrease the harmful effects that might be brought onto the concrete.
Since we are to use rainwater as the mixing water in concrete, it’s still unknown to us how the
impurities in rainwater will affect the concrete either in the positive way or the negative one.

"Reclamation and reuse of waste water should be legislated and enforced for the production
of structural and non-structural concrete." (International Journal of Applied Engineering
Research ISSN 0973-4562 Volume 10, Number 19 (2015) pp. 39865-39870 © Research India
Publications. http://www.ripublication.com)

Gray water or the waste water from wash basins, kitchen and laundries, was said to have
less impurities according to Peche, Jamkar and Sadgir (2015). From an existing research, gray
water was used in making concrete and from this; we came up with an idea of using recycled
water like rainwater due to the limited sources of natural water. If rainwater would be a possible
component in concretes, it would be practical and cheaper to use, especially in residential.
 There are several standards that are considered in concrete making. Based on Peche, Jamkar
and Sadgir (2015), one of the standards is IS 3025-1984 which suggests that the desired water to
be used (either potable, recycled or waste) must be tested for impurities because it plays a very
important role in establishing the highest possible efficiency of the concrete and its strength.
Another one is EN 1008-2002, which recommends the requirements of water needed to process
the concrete conforming the standard EN 206-1 and to discuss the methods needed to attain it.
The use of potable water and water from natural sources are favored in this standard and the use
of sewage water is not good or appropriate for the production of concrete.

Rainwater as Mixing Water

According to Russell (2004), “water in a raindrop is one of the cleanest sources of water
available. Rainwater can absorb gases such as carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen dioxide and
sulfur dioxide from the atmosphere. Nevertheless, rainwater is almost 100% pure water before it
reaches the ground. “From this we can somehow conclude that rainwater is possible mixing
water for concrete whereas drinking water are cleaner than tap water and are used in the concrete
making.

Rainwater harvesting is believed by many as a partial solution to the problems posed by

water scarcity (Pushard, 2015). Water scarcity is all over the world. It is a major problem of
increasing cases. In line with rainwater harvesting is using the raw rainwater in the construction
areas. Researchers also believe that rainwater could be a big solution to the water scarcity.

Water cement ratio

According to Concrete Countertop Institute (), for ordinary concrete (sidewalks and
driveways), a w/c ratio of 0.6 to 0.7 is considered normal. A lower w/c ratio of 0.4 is generally
specified if a higher quality concrete is desired. The practical range of the w/c ratio is from about
0.3 to over 0.8. A ratio of 0.3 is very stiff (unless super plasticizers are used), and a ratio of 0.8
makes a wet and fairly weak concrete.

Based from the basic information above, the range of a workable concrete would be from
0.4 to 0.7 wherein 0.4 is the most desired water-cement ratio of the concrete and 0.7 the
minimum water-cement ratio of the normal concrete. And to come up with a better research,
aiming for a value near 0.4 is the goal of the research.

According to Wong and Buenfeld (2009), the mass ratio of water-to-cement content is
one of the most important parameters in making proportions of the concrete mixture. The w/c
ratio has a significant influence on every property of concrete especially to hard concrete.

The w/c ratio is one of the determinants of how strong a concrete is. To be able to
produce a concrete with specific values of water-cement ratio could be the basis of the
determining the compressive strength thus to conclude if a specific concrete is workable even for
small purposes.
 According to The Concrete Countertop Institute (1999), in making a concrete it is important
to know the ratio of water before mixing it with the cement. Water is the key to have a durable
concrete. The water cement ratio of 0.4 is commonly used in creating concretes. When the water
is not enough to the ratio of cement, it don’t have any capability to bind the materials and it will
become unusable, while the counterpart is when the water is too much, the strength of a concrete
will reduce. The more the diluted paste, the weaker it is.

Fig 1: concrete that is too dry, concrete that is too wet (from left to right)

Fig 2: Standard Concrete

There is this research in the Imperial College of London wherein they discovered a new
microscopy-based method to estimate the original w/c ratio that overcomes the disadvantages of
existing techniques which is called the backscattered electron microscopy.
 Fig 3: Schematic representation of the volumetric proportions of the main phases in
concrete.

Fig 4: BSE image and segmented image for measuring volume fractions of unreacted
cement, capillary pores and hydration products.

According to Imperial College of London (2004), the volumetric fractions of the fine and
course aggregates and air voids are considered constant in time because the decreasing of size or
the shrinking is negligible.

VC + VW = VAH + VHP + VCP . .

VAH, VHP and VCP can be measured with backscattered electron microscopy (Fig. 4) and the
answers are then used to compute for the cement and water content, the w/c ratio where ρC is the
cement’s specific gravity and δV is the increase of solids during hydration, which is
approximately equal to two.
 According to Winter (2005) Using the method of Electron Microscopy is dependent on
having a series of mature cement pastes for comparison made using different water-cement
ratios, covering the range likely to be encountered in concrete. They should be at least a month
old and preferably six months or older so that cement hydration is virtually as complete as it is
ever likely to be, assuming that the concretes to be tested are mature. The pastes are examined in
polished section in the scanning electron microscope (SEM) and images retained for comparison.

So, observing the 4 figures below, we have four different pastes, each made using a
different water-cement ratio. We have 0.33 as the lowest w/c ratio, as that was the lowest at
which I could make a paste of that cement without using any admixture, which I didn't want to
do. A clear progression is apparent, with fewer grains of un-hydrated cement and more pores
visible at higher w/c ratios. (Winter, 2005).
 According to Winter (2005) As this method compares pastes with the paste fraction of
concrete, it estimates the effective water-cement ratio without any allowance for the water
demand of the aggregate. Observing in the figures above, we can barely say that lower water
content concretes are stronger, and permeability is small.

According to Imperial College of London (2004), this electron-based test is advantageous in

a way it is reproduce easily and does not allow anymore comparisons to the standards as
reference. It was already tested on pastes, mortars and concretes which are high in mixing
proportions and age with satisfying results. They said that the estimated error in this free water-
cement ratio is less than 0.025 for pastes and less than 0.05 for mortars and concretes.