CE 308

Plain and Reinforced Concrete I

Special Weather Concreting

Dr. Wasim
Khaliq

Hot Weather Concrete

Rapid hydration early setting rapid loss of workability

Extra problems due to

Low humidity
Wind, excessive evaporation
Direct sunlight

Solutions

Windbreaks
Cooled Concrete Ingredients
Water ponding (cooling due to evaporation)
Reflective coatings/coverings

Cold Weather Concrete

Keep concrete temperature above 5C to minimize danger of
freezing
Solutions
Heated enclosures, insulation
Rely on heat of hydration for larger sections
Heated ingredients --- concrete hot when placed
High early strength cement

Cold Weather Concrete

In the event of little cement hydration, no strength gain

occurs when the concrete is frozen and is kept frozen below
10C.

Fresh concrete must be protected from freezing until

adequate strength has been gained.

Disruptive expansion is also prevented when the degree of

saturation of concrete has been sufficiently reduced by some
progress in the hydration process.

Without an external heat source, the heat of cement

hydration in large and well-insulated concrete members may
be adequate to maintain satisfactory curing temperatures
provided that the concrete has been delivered at a proper
temperature.

Cold Weather Concrete

ACI Committee 306R recommendation for cold-weather
concreting on placement temperatures for normal-weight
concrete is shown in Table

Cold Weather Concrete

Lower concrete temperatures are permitted for massive

sections because with these the heat generated during
hydration is dissipated less rapidly.
For cold-weather concreting, making fresh concrete
mixtures at temperatures 21C (70F) is not recommended.
The higher temperatures do not necessarily offer better
protection:
at higher temperatures the rate of heat loss is greater
the water requirement for the same consistency is more

Cold Weather Concrete

Of all the concrete-making components, mixing water is the

easiest to heat.
Water can store five times as much heat as can the same
mass of cement or aggregate (compared to a specific heat of
1.0 for water, the average specific heat for cement and
aggregates is 0.22).
At temperatures above freezing, it is rarely necessary to heat
the coarse aggregates.
At temperatures below freezing, often only the fine
aggregate needs to be heated to keep the freshly produced
concrete at the required temperature, generally
accomplished by circulating hot air or steam through pipes
embedded in the aggregate stockpile.

Concrete Temperature
Concrete temperature can be measured directly by a mercury
thermometer or a bimetallic thermometer. It can also be
estimated using the expression

The formula remains the same in SI units except that F is changed to C

and pounds to kilograms.

Hot-weather concreting

ACI Committee 305 defines hot weather as any combination of

high air temperature, low relative humidity, and wind velocity
tending to impair the quality of fresh or hardened concrete.
Hot weather increases slump loss and plastic-shrinkage cracking,
and the decreases setting time in fresh concrete.
Hot weather increases the mixing water requirement for a given
consistency and creates difficulty in holding the air in an airentrained concrete mixture.
Concrete placed and cured at higher than moderate ambient
temperatures normally develops high early strength but at 28
days and later ages the strength is usually lower than the same
concrete.

Control of concrete temperature

The mixing water has the greatest effect per unit weight of
any of the ingredients on the temperature of concrete, the use
of cooled mixing water and/or ice offers the best way of
lowering the temperature of concrete.

The expression used for determining the temperature of

concrete in cold weather by using hot water can be employed
for calculating how much cold water will be needed to lower
the temperature of a concrete by a given amount.

Alternatively, charts such can be used.

Water Requirement
The data pertains to nominal concrete mixture containing 335 kg/m3
cement, 170 kg/m3 water, and 1830 kg/m3 aggregate.

Reduction in Concrete Temperature