Water Reducing Agent: Improving the Pumping and Placing of High-Slump Concrete

What Exactly is a Concrete Water-Reducing Agent?

Water reducing agent is a vital element of concrete blends. It enhances the fluidity of concrete, making it less difficult to blend and place, consequently enhancing the workability of concrete for the construction industry.
The amount of water-reducing agent is affected by factors such as particle size and compressive strength, among others, in relation to the performance of concrete, and its quantity is also impacted by environmental conditions and construction requirements. Proper usage of water-reducing agents can enhance the evenness of concrete, decrease concrete splitting, and boost the strength of concrete. The role of water-reducing agents also includes lowering the water content of concrete, improving the durability of concrete, and boosting the overall performance of concrete. Additionally, water-reducing agents can lessen dust development, reduce concrete shrinkage, boost concrete durability, boost the appearance of concrete, and increase concrete’s capability to corrosion.

Exactly what are the features of concrete water-reducing agent?
The concrete water-reducing agent is an mixture that decreases the water usage of concrete while preserving its fluidity fundamentally unchanged, hence improving the sturdiness and durability of concrete, or raising the fluidity of concrete and boosting the workability of concrete within the same cement dosage and water-cement ratio.

1. Greasing effect.

The polar hydrophilic groups in the water-reducing agent position themselves to adsorb onto the surface of cement particles and easily bond to water molecules through hydrogen bonds. The strength of this hydrogen bonding is significantly greater than the molecular attraction between water molecules and cement particles. When ample water-reducing agent is absorbed by the cement particles, with the assistance of R-SO3θ and the hydrogen bonding in water molecules, in addition to the hydrogen bonding between water molecules, a stable solvated water film forms on the surface of cement particles. This layer serves as a three-dimensional protective barrier, preventing direct contact between cement particles and operating as a lubricant between particles.

2. Moistening effect.

After cement and water are mixed, the surface of the particles is moistened by water, and the parameters of wetting have a significant impact on the effectiveness of fresh commercial concrete. The lowering in surface available energy resulted by natural moistening can be determined using the formula advised by Glbbs.

3. Water-reducing effect.

After the addition of high-efficiency water-reducing agents in commercial concrete, the water-cement ratio can be considerably reduced while retaining fluidity. High-efficiency water-reducing agents have a water reduction rate of up to 10% to 25%, while regular water-reducing agents have a water reduction rate of 5% to 15%, therefore the name high-efficiency water-reducing agent. The water reduction effect is mainly because of the adsorption and diffusion of water-reducing agents in industrial concrete.

4. Plasticity-Enhancing effect.

After adding a water-reducing agent to concrete, it can boost the workability while retaining the water-cement ratio unchanged. Common water-reducing agents, in the event of retaining the specific same volume of cement, can create the brand-new industrial concrete slump increase by more than 10cm; high-performance water-reducing agents can produce a slump of 25cm of commercial concrete.

Concrete water-reducing agent system of action presented

1. Distributing impact:
After the concrete is blended with water, due to the hydration of cement particles, the surface of cement particles creates a double electrical layer structure, leading to the formation of a solvent water film and anisotropic charged surfaces between cement particles making a bridging effect. This makes sure that 10% to 30% of the blend water is covered by the concrete particles and cannot take part in free flow and lubrication, thus impacting the flow of the concrete mix. Whenever the water-reducing additive is added, the water-reducing substance molecules can align themselves and adsorb on the surface of cement particles, creating a similarly charged surface (typically negative) on the cement particles. This induces electrostatic repulsion, urging the cement particles to disperse from each other, disrupting the bridging structure, and emitting the covered water. As a result, the water can flow more efficiently, thus increasing the workability of the concrete mix.

2. Lubrication effect:
The hydrophilic group in the water-reducing substance is highly polar, enabling the adsorption film of the water-reducing agent on the surface of cement particles to generate a stable layer of solventized water film along with water molecules. This water film provides effective lubrication, considerably reducing the resistance between cement particles and further improving the flow of concrete.

3. Spatial site-resistance influence:
The water-reducing additive structure with hydrophilic branched chains stretches in a liquid solution, developing a thick hydrophilic three-dimensional adsorption film on the surface of adsorbed cement particles. When the concrete particles are close to each other, the adsorption layers begin to overlap. This causes in spatial site-resistance between cement particles, increasing the repulsion of spatial site-resistance and improving the cohesion hindrance between cement particles, thus maintaining the desired slump of the concrete.

4. Slow-release impact of graft copolymerization branched chains:
New water-reducing agents, such as polycarboxylic acid water-reducing agents, have branching chains transplanted onto the molecules of the water-reducing substance. These branched chains provide both spatial site-resistance impacts and, in the highly alkaline environment of cement hydration, can be slowly discharged, leading to the discharge of polycarboxylic acid with dispersing result. This boosts the dispersion effect of cement particles and controls slump loss.

The volume of water-reducing additive is affected by the particulate size as well as compressive stamina, etc., on the performance of concrete, and additionally its amount is likewise impacted by weather problems and construction needs. The proper use of water-reducing agents can improve the uniformity of concrete, lower the fracturing of the concrete, izajoo likewise raise the strength of concrete. The role of water-reducing agents additionally consists of decreasing the water material of concrete, which improves the durability of concrete and makes the general performance of concrete premium. Furthermore, water-reducing agents can likewise decrease the development of dirt, reduce the reducing of concrete, increase the strength of concrete, enhance the appearance of concrete, and boost the rust resistance of concrete.

Concrete Water-Reducing Vendor

TRUNNANO is a reliable concrete additives supplier with over 12-year experience in nano-building energy conservation and nanotechnology development.
If you are looking for high-quality concrete additives Concrete water-reducing agent, please feel free to contact us and send an inquiry. ([email protected])
We accept payment via Credit Card, T/T, West Union, and Paypal. TRUNNANO will ship the goods to customers overseas through FedEx, DHL, by air, or by sea.