How to make concrete last 100 years

Concrete is a critical part of our society and the projects that you build around your house. When we take the time to build something out of concrete we need to make sure it is long lasting and meets the needs of the owner. This video talks about four items to focus on to build long high quality and lasting concrete. They are the water to cement ratio, consolidation, curing, and air entrainment in freeze thaw environments. More indepth information on several of these topics can be found in other videos listed below. Also, there are links to several of the products discussed for DIY concrete folk.

Reference videos:
Intro to curing concrete

Why do we need air bubbles in concrete?

Intro to concrete scaling

Referenced products:
These companies did not pay me to advertise their products. However, I am an Amazon affiliate and I do make money when you purchase from these links. These are products aimed at DIY concrete folks but also useful for anyone wanting to product high quality concrete.

Superplasticizer

Air entraining agent

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[joonaknuutinen]

if i ever buy a house and need concrete in the yard, i know what to do. i mean i dont, but i know where the knowledge is, and then i do. this dude really loves his concrete. holy shit..

[punman]

The base of Sir Smeaton’s Tower is still standing to this day off the coast of Plymouth, England despite being constantly bashed by waves from the sea. Truly a testament to his hydraulic lime formula for concrete. Extremely strong stuff. You should actually do a video talking about Smeaton’s concrete

[SwirlingDragonMist]

Using a porous aggregate that has a high amount of water retention, holding water like a sponge releasing it slowly into the concrete right in the critical curing stages that are water starved. I believe the technique is called “internal curing” having the water available at the late stages is a game changer. Look into “light weight aggregates” and “internal curing”

[senthamilselvan]

Believe me You are a great teacher. Iam going to finish watching all your concrete videos in this lockdown

[ronaldbarrett]

I have worked with concrete (including compressed) for over two decades. Concrete is a fantastic, useful compound. The use of silanes and siloxanes really do work. You mention it however there are some really important side issues. One is the high VOC silanes. They do work, are up to three part mixes, and are FLAMMABLE. You need to be careful of this. In addition you need protective clothing/gloves/breathing/eye gear. Do not ignore this. There also is an additional matter with a silane/siloxane coating. I have had coated concrete Walk ways mostly) that when coated well:Mitigate mild growth in areas as wet as south Florida. If a silane producer sells you a product:DO get trained on it first. Be safe and all will do well.

[nhutnguyen]

Design phase: W/C =<0.4, Using super-plasticizer, appropriate concrete grade & cover, appropriate raw materials ( aggregate, crushed sand and river sand with better properties parameters), control crack limit, using crystalline product (self-sealing micro crack), cement PCBbsf50, using by-products (fly ash / furnaced slag / silicafume with proper amount ), etc. Construction phase: proper vibration, curing, following formwork removal procedure....). Operation phase: Following operation and maintenance Manual.
Good videos. Thank u so much!!!

[neilguilbeault]

Enjoy your content, I'm a contractor and one of my older friends says he adds a cup of wood ash to every 3L ratio of portland. He says this will make it more waterproof.

[billhopen]

when you are finishing semi hardened "green "concrete with a steel trowel, add a spray of water and dust it with dry pure portland cement it round and round, work that pure portland paste into the pores. the poured cement going off will catalyze the fresh cement slime you are working in and make it go off pretty it all wet as long as possible, even after its hard as hell. if you want a rough surface, use foam or wood trowel for the swirling

[joeblow]

I'm a glassblower and former owner of a business that designed and produced custom colored borosilicate glass.

I don't want to get into it too much, but silica fume is complete magic.

Also, there's a few of us who've been trying to develop a technique to create stronger concrete by using our waste glass as a medium. Currently, there is no way to recycle borosilicate glass, and there are countless tons of waste produced yearly. We've had pretty good success so far. If we can create a small batch concrete that's strong and durable enough, we know there are a plethora of uses for it.

[BobLobsiger]

when I built my shop...and living with very poor flatwork done in my home and attached garage...I spec'd 6 inches of 4500 psi, as dry of slump as the finisher was willing to work with, poured over radiant tubes with wire re-enforcement. Once poured and finished, about four hours later I ran water through the radiant tubes to remove heat to slow the cure. Water went in around 50 degrees and came out in the 90's. The water then was sent to a sprinkler that was set on the slab. I ran the water for three days. This was summer with daytime temps in the 90's. Turned out great. only one crack in 8 years.

[galibmuktadir]

Hi Dr. Ley, Galib from NC State University. Your videos helped me tremendously in understanding the concrete durability concepts. Big thanks.

[VenturiLife]

You're probably going to mention reinforcing soon too, but basalt rebar will be amazing. Silica fume, super plasticizer, basalt, proper ratios and curing and you have something incredibly tough.

[ehsnils]

You would probably want to visit old fortresses that have been built over 100 years ago. I'm involved in the museum fortress Oscar II Fort ( o2fort.se ) here in Sweden and the cement used when it was built in 1908 is in better condition than the fast modifications added for WWII.

So good concrete construction knowledge has been around quite a while, but it has of course been refined over time.

[HyperDrakeHyperSpeed]

Please make a video about why so many buildings in Turkey failed during the recent earth quake. Thanks for all your videos.

[kevinjmellis]

Excellent video. I personally however am using aircrete, which has with billions bubbles so absolutely zero vibration.

[blainekunkel]

Great Video...Your videos have been instrumental in helping me understand the fundamentals of concrete. We are in the business of developing cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) as a strength enhancing concrete additive and many of your videos have become "required reading" for our team. Keep up the great work!!

[rakeshchavan]

Dear Sir,
I always love to watch and learn from your videos.

[someguy]

Regular curing methods ensure that the concrete surface is well cured, but deeper inside the concrete the cement can still be starved of water, particularly in low w/c ratio mixes. To solve this problem we can introduce internal curing. This can be accomplished by replacing a portion of the aggregate with a porous material (such as expanded shale). The porous material is pre-soaked it water to fill all the voids in the aggregate with water. When the concrete is mixed, the extra water within the voids of the aggregate is trapped and does not dilute the cement paste (thus reducing its strength, as shown in the video), but once the free water in the concrete is consumed during curing, the water within the voids defuses out of the aggregate, helping to further cure the cement paste (or make those white circles in the video even larger). Internal curing can thus make concrete both stronger and more impermeable.

[HBM-ckbo]

I wish I could see your videos during my PhD. It would have helped me a lot!! Anyway I'm glad to discover your channel 😊

[pshmjzj]

Thank you Tayler Lay for sharing vlogs related to Concrete (fresh state or consolidated)