Concrete Curing

2018-07-11

Concrete curing is by artificially causing a certain temperature and humidity conditions to make cement hydration, so that the newly built concrete can be normal or accelerate its hardening and strength growth.

Purposes of Concrete curing

After the concrete is poured, if the climate is hot and the air is dry, the moisture in concrete will evaporate too quickly to form the phenomenon of dehydration, which will appear on the surface of the concrete. In addition, when the concrete does not have enough strength, premature evaporation will produce larger shrinkage deformation and dry shrinkage crack. Therefore, the maintenance of the initial stage after concrete pouring is very important, the concrete should be cured immediately after the end of the concrete, and the dry concrete should be cured immediately after the completion of the concrete pouring.

Methods of Concrete curing

The maintenance method of concrete is the longest time-consuming and the most influential sub project of concrete quality in the whole concrete project. Generally speaking, the starting time of concrete maintenance depends on the local climatic conditions and the type of cement used in concrete works. For general environment, maintenance of common cement varieties should start after 12h-18h.Maintenance time should last 21-28 days. Natural curing and steam curing are commonly used in concrete curing. The mechanism of concrete maintenance is to keep the concrete moist and avoid losing water to achieve the purpose of maintenance. During the maintenance of concrete, the humidity and temperature control of concrete should be emphasized to reduce the exposure time of the surface concrete as far as possible. The concrete cover should be covered closely in time (with the cover of the cloth and plastic cloth) to prevent the evaporation of the surface water.

1. Natural curing

   Natural curing refers to the curing measures for covering, watering, wetting, windproof and thermal insulation of concrete under natural temperature conditions (above +5 degree C).Natural maintenance is divided into covering water curing and spraying plastic film maintenance.

   Covering water curing is to cover the concrete with straw curtain, reed mat and gunny bag. Curing time depends on cement varieties, such as ordinary Portland cement concrete not less than 7 days and nights.

   The spraying plastic film is sprayed on the concrete surface with a spray gun of vinyl perchloroethylene resin. After the volatilization, a layer of film is formed on the surface of the concrete, and the concrete is isolated from the air to prevent the evaporation of the water in the concrete. Thus, the hydration of the concrete will be carried out normally. After the curing is completed, the film can be aged and off itself. This method is suitable for towering structures and large area concrete structures which are not easy to sprinkle and maintain.

    

1. Steam curing

   Steam curing is to put concrete components in a curing chamber filled with mixtures of saturated steam or steam and air, and accelerate the hardening of concrete in a high temperature and humidity environment. The curing effect is related to the steam curing system, which includes the static time before the steam curing, the heating and cooling rate, the curing temperature, the constant temperature curing time, the relative humidity and so on. The steam curing room has pit type, vertical kiln type and tunnel kiln type.

    

   After concrete curing completed, DTS diamond tools would be involved to grind and polish the concrete floor for different applications, such as Metal bond Tooling, Hybrid Floor Pad, Resin Floor Polishing Pad etc.