Concrete Construction Part 1

Concrete Construction.

by Halbert P. Gillette and Charles S. Hill.

PREFACE.

How best to perform construction work and what it will cost for materials, labor, plant and general expenses are matters of vital interest to engineers and contractors. This book is a treatise on the methods and cost of concrete construction. No attempt has been made to present the subject of cement testing which is already covered by Mr. W.

Purves Taylor's excellent book, nor to discuss the physical properties of cements and concrete, as they are discussed by Falk and by Sabin, nor to consider reinforced concrete design as do Turneaure and Maurer or Buel and Hill, nor to present a general treatise on cements, mortars and concrete construction like that of Reid or of Taylor and Thompson. On the contrary, the authors have handled the subject of concrete construction solely from the viewpoint of the builder of concrete structures. By doing this they have been able to crowd a great amount of detailed information on methods and costs of concrete construction into a volume of moderate size.

Though the special information contained in the book is of most particular a.s.sistance to the contractor or engineer engaged in the actual work of making and placing concrete, it is believed that it will also prove highly useful to the designing engineer and to the architect.

It seems plain that no designer of concrete structures can be a really good designer without having a profound knowledge of methods of construction and of detailed costs. This book, it is believed, gives these methods and cost data in greater number and more thoroughly a.n.a.lyzed than they can be found elsewhere in engineering literature.

The costs and other facts contained in the book have been collected from a mult.i.tude of sources, from the engineering journals, from the transactions of the engineering societies, from Government Reports and from the personal records of the authors and of other engineers and contractors. It is but fair to say that the great bulk of the matter contained in the book, though portions of it have appeared previously in other forms in the authors' contributions to the technical press, was collected and worked up originally by the authors. Where this has not been the case the original data have been added to and re-a.n.a.lyzed by the authors. Under these circ.u.mstances it has been impracticable to give specific credit in the pages of the book to every source from which the authors have drawn aid. They wish here to acknowledge, therefore, the help secured from many engineers and contractors, from the volumes of Engineering News, Engineering Record and Engineering-Contracting, and from the Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the proceedings and papers of various other civil engineering societies and organizations of concrete workers. The work done by these journals and societies in gathering and publishing information on concrete construction is of great and enduring value and deserves full acknowledgment.

In answer to any possible inquiry as to the relative parts of the work done by the two authors in preparing this book, they will answer that it has been truly the labor of both in every part.

H. P. G.

C. S. H.

Chicago, Ill., April 15, 1908.

Concrete Construction Methods and Cost

CHAPTER I.

METHODS AND COST OF SELECTING AND PREPARING MATERIALS FOR CONCRETE.

Concrete is an artificial stone produced by mixing cement mortar with broken stone, gravel, broken slag, cinders or other similar fragmentary materials. The component parts are therefore hydraulic cement, sand and the broken stone or other coa.r.s.e material commonly designated as the aggregate.

CEMENT.

At least a score of varieties of hydraulic cement are listed in the cla.s.sifications of cement technologists. The constructing engineer and contractor recognize only three varieties: Portland cement, natural cement and slag or puzzolan cement. All concrete used in engineering work is made of either Portland, natural or slag cement, and the great bulk of all concrete is made of Portland cement. Only these three varieties of cement are, therefore, considered here and they only in their aspects having relation to the economics of construction work. For a full discussion of the chemical and physical properties of hydraulic cements and for the methods of determining these properties by tests, the reader is referred to "Practical Cement Testing," by W. Purves Taylor.

~PORTLAND CEMENT.~--Portland cement is the best of the hydraulic cements.

Being made from a rigidly controlled artificial mixture of lime, silica and alumina the product of the best mills is a remarkably strong, uniform and stable material. It is suitable for all cla.s.ses of concrete work and is the only variety of hydraulic cement allowable for reinforced concrete or for plain concrete having to endure hard wear or to be used where strength, density and durability of high degree are demanded.

~NATURAL CEMENT.~--Natural cement differs from Portland cement in degree only. It is made by calcining and grinding a limestone rock containing naturally enough clayey matter (silica and alumina) to make a cement that will harden under water. Owing to the imperfection and irregularity of the natural rock mixture, natural cement is weaker and less uniform than Portland cement. Natural cement concrete is suitable for work in which great unit strength or uniformity of quality is not essential. It is never used for reinforced work.

~SLAG CEMENT.~--Slag cement has a strength approaching very closely that of Portland cement, but as it will not stand exposure to the air slag cement concrete is suitable for use only under water. Slag cement is made by grinding together slaked lime and granulated blast furnace slag.

~SIZE AND WEIGHT OF BARRELS OF CEMENT.~--The commercial unit of measurement of cement is the barrel; the unit of shipment is the bag. A barrel of Portland cement contains 380 lbs. of cement, and the barrel itself weighs 20 lbs.; there are four bags (cloth or paper sacks) of cement to the barrel, and the regulation cloth sack weighs 1 lbs.

The size of cement barrels varies, due to the differences in weight of cement and to differences in compacting the cement into the barrel. A light burned Portland cement weighs 100 lbs. per struck bushel; a heavy burned Portland cement weighs 118 to 125 lbs. per struck bushel. The number of cubic feet of packed Portland cement in a barrel ranges from 3 to 3. Natural cements are lighter than Portland cement. A barrel of Louisville, Akron, Utica or other Western natural cement contains 265 lbs. of cement and weighs 15 lbs. itself; a barrel of Rosendale or other Eastern cement contains 300 lbs. of cement and the barrel itself weighs 20 lbs. There are 3- cu. ft. in a barrel of Louisville cement. Usually there are three bags to a barrel of natural cement.

As stated above, the usual shipping unit for cement is the bag, but cement is often bought in barrels or, for large works, in bulk. When bought in cloth bags, a charge is made of 10 cts. each for the bags, but on return of the bags a credit of 8 to 10 cts. each is allowed.

Cement bought in barrels costs 10 cts. more per barrel than in bulk, and cement ordered in paper bags costs 5 cts. more per barrel than in bulk.

Cement is usually bought in cloth sacks which are returned, but to get the advantage of this method of purchase the user must have an accurate system for preserving, checking up and shipping the bags.

Where any considerable amount of cement is to be used the contractor will find that it will pay to erect a small bag house or to close off a room at the mixing plant. Provide the enclosure with a locked door and with a small window into which the bags are required to be thrown as fast as emptied. One trustworthy man is given the key and the task of counting up the empty bags each day to see that they check with the bags of cement used. The following rule for packing and shipping is given by Gilbreth.[A]

[Footnote A: "Field System," Frank B. Gilbreth. Myron C. Clark Publishing Co., New York and Chicago.]

"Pack cement bags laid flat, one on top of the other, in piles of 50.

They can then be counted easily. Freight must be prepaid when cement bags are returned and bills of lading must be obtained in duplicate or credit cannot be obtained on shipment."

The volumes given above are for cement compacted in the barrel. When the cement is emptied and shoveled into boxes it measures from 20 to 30 per cent more than when packed in the barrel. The following table compiled from tests made for the Boston Transit Commission, Mr. Howard Carson, Chief Engineer, in 1896, shows the variation in volume of cement measured loose and packed in barrels:

Per cent Brand Vol. Barrel Vol. Packed Vol. Loose Increase Portland. cu. ft. cu. ft. cu. ft. in bulk Giant 3.5 3.35 4.17 25 Atlas 3.45 3.21 3.75 18 Saylors 3.25 3.15 4.05 30 Alsen 3.22 3.16 4.19 33 Dyckerhoff 3.12 3.03 4.00 33

Mr. Clarence M. Foster is authority for the statement that Utica cement barrels measure 16-1/4 ins. across at the heads, 19 ins. across the bilge, and 25-3/4 ins. in length under heads, and contain 3.77 cu. ft.

When 265 lbs. of Utica natural hydraulic cement are packed in a barrel it fills it within 2 ins. of the top and occupies 3.45 cu. ft., and this is therefore the volume of a barrel of Utica hydraulic cement packed tight.

In comparative tests made of the weights and volumes of various brands of cements at Chicago in 1903, the following figures were secured:

Vol. per Weight per Weight per bbl., cu. ft. bbl., lbs. cu. ft.

Brand. Loose. Gross. Net. Loose, lbs.

Dyckerhoff 4.47 395 369.5 83 Atlas 4.45 401 381 85.5 Alpha 4.37 400.5 381 86.5 Puzzolan 4.84 375 353.5 73.5 Steel 4.96 345 322.5 67.5 Hilton 4.64 393 370.5 79.5

~SPECIFICATIONS AND TESTING~--The great bulk of cement used in construction work is bought on specification. The various government bureaus, state and city works departments, railway companies, and most public service corporations have their own specifications. Standard specifications are also put forward by several of the national engineering societies, and one of these or the personal specification of the engineer is used for individual works. Buying cement to specification necessitates testing to determine that the material purchased meets the specified requirements. For a complete discussion of the methods of conducting such tests the reader is referred to "Practical Cement Testing" by W. Purves Taylor.

According to this authority a field testing laboratory will cost for equipment $250 to $350. Such a laboratory can be operated by two or three men at a salary charge of from $100 to $200 per month. Two men will test on an average four samples per day and each additional man will test four more samples. The cost of testing will range from $3 to $5 per sample, which is roughly equivalent to 3 cts. per barrel of cement, or from 3 to 5 cts. per cubic yard of concrete. These figures are for field laboratory work reasonably well conducted under ordinarily favorable conditions. In large laboratories the cost per sample will run somewhat lower.

SAND.

Sand const.i.tutes from 1/3 to 1/2 of the volume of concrete; when a large amount of concrete is to be made a contractor cannot, therefore, afford to guess at his source of sand supply. A long haul over poor roads can easily make the sand cost more than the stone per cubic yard of concrete.

~PROPERTIES OF GOOD SAND.~--Engineers commonly specify that sand for concrete shall be clean and sharp, and silicious in character. Neither sharpness nor excessive cleanliness is worth seeking after if it involves much expense. Tests show conclusively that sand with rounded grains makes quite as strong a mortar, other things being equal, as does sand with angular grains. The admixture with sand of a considerable percentage of loam or clay is also not the unmixed evil it has been supposed to be. Myron S. Falk records[B] a number of elaborate experiments on this point. These experiments demonstrate conclusively that loam and clay in sand to the amount of 10 to 15 per cent. result in no material reduction in the strength of mortars made with this sand as compared with mortars made with the same sand after washing. There can be no doubt but that for much concrete work the expense entailed in washing sand is an unnecessary one.

[Footnote B: "Cements, Mortars and Concretes" By Myron S. Falk. Myron C.

Clark Publishing Co., Chicago, Ill.]

The only subst.i.tute for natural sand for concrete, that need be considered practically, is pulverized stone, either the dust and fine screenings produced in crushing rock or an artificial sand made by reducing suitable rocks to powder. As a conclusion from the records of numerous tests, M. S. Falk says: "It may be concluded that rock screenings may be subst.i.tuted for sand, either in mortar or concrete, without any loss of strength resulting. This is important commercially, for it precludes the necessity of screening the dust from crushed rock and avoids, at the same time, the cost of procuring a natural sand to take its place."

The princ.i.p.al danger in using stone dust is failure to secure the proper balance of different size grains. This is also an important matter in the choice of natural sands. Sand composed of a mixture of grains ranging from fine to coa.r.s.e gives uniformly stronger mortars than does sand with grains of nearly one size, and as between a coa.r.s.e and a fine sand of one size of grains the coa.r.s.e sand gives the stronger mortar.

Further data on the effect of size of grains on the utility of sand for concrete are given in Chapter II, in the section on Voids in Sand, and for those who wish to study in detail, the test data on this and the other matters referred to here, the authors recommend "Cements, Mortars and Concretes; Their Physical Properties," by Myron S. Falk.

~COST OF SAND.~--A very common price for sand in cities is $1 per cu. yd., delivered at the work. It may be noted here that as sand is often sold by the load instead of the cubic yard, it is wise to have a written agreement defining the size of a load. Where the contractor gets his sand from the pit its cost will be the cost of excavating and loading at the pit, the cost of hauling in wagons, the cost of freight and rehandling it if necessary, and the cost of washing, added together.

An energetic man working under a good foreman will load 20 cu. yds. of sand into wagons per 10-hour day; with a poor foreman or when laborers are scarce, it is not safe to count on more than 15 cu. yds. per day.

With wages at $1.50 per day this will make the cost of loading 10 cts.