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ACPA - American Pavement Glossary Category: Architecture and Buildings > concrete terms Date & country: 25/09/2008, USA Words: 597

Capillary Flow
Flow of moisture through a capillary pore system, such as concrete.

Capillary Space
In cement paste, any space not occupied by anhydrous cement or cement gel. (Air bubbles, whether entrained or entrapped, are not considered to be part of the cement paste.)

Capillary Transmission
Passage of water or other fluid through capillaries, either by capillarity or under hydraulic pressure; capillary flow.

Carbide-Milling
Surface removal or sawing done with carbide milling machine; Machine uses blade or arbor equipped with carbide-tipped teeth that impact and chip concrete or asphalt.

Carbonation
Reaction between carbon dioxide and the products of portland cement hydration to produce calcium carbonate.

Cast-In-Place
Concrete placed and finished in its final location.

Cement
See Portland Cement

Cement Content
Quantity of cement contained in a unit volume of concrete or mortar, ordinarily expressed as pounds, barrels, or bags per cubic yard.

Cement Factor
See Cement Content

Cement Paste
Constituent of concrete consisting of cement and water.

Cement, Blended
A hydraulic cement consisting essentially of an intimate and uniform blend of granulated blast-furnace slag and hydrated lime; or an intimate and uniform blend of portland cement and granulated blast-furnace slag cement and pozzolan, produced by intergrinding Portland cement clinker with the other materials or by blending Portland cement with the other materials, or a combination of intergrinding ...

Cement, Expansive
A special cement which, when mixed with water, forms a paste that tends to increase in volume at an early age; used to compensate for volume decrease due to drying shrinkage.

Cement, High-Early-Strength
Cement characterized by producing earlier strength in mortar or concrete than regular cement, referred to in the United States as 'Type III.'

Cement, Hydraulic
Cement that is capable of setting and hardening under water, such as normal portland cement.

Cement, Normal
General purpose portland cement, referred to in the United States as 'Type I.'

Cement, Portland-Pozzolan
A hydraulic cement consisting essentially of an intimate and uniform blend of portland cement or portland blast-furnace slag cement and fine pozzolan produced by intergrinding portland-cement clinker and pozzolan, by blending portland cement or portland blast-furnace slag cement and finely divided pozzolan, or a combination of intergrinding and blending, in which the pozzolan constituent is within...

Cement-Aggregate Ratio
The ratio, by weight or volume, of cement to aggregate.

Cementitious
Having cementing properties.

Cementitious materials
Substances that alone have hydraulic cementing properties (set and harden in the presence of water). Includes: ground granulated blast furnace slag, natural cement, hydraulic hydrated lime, and combinations of these and other materials.

Central Mixer
A stationary concrete mixer from which the fresh concrete is transported to the work.

Central-Mixed Concrete
Concrete that is completely mixed in a stationary mixer from which it is transported to the delivery point.

Chair
See Bar Support

Chalking
A phenomenon of coatings, such as cement paint, manifested by the formation of a loose powder by deterioration of the paint at or just beneath the surface.

Charging
Introducing, feeding, or loading materials into a concrete or mortar mixer, furnace, or other container or receptacle.

Checking
Development of shallow cracks at closely spaced but irregular intervals on the surface of mortar or concrete.

Chipping
Treatment of a hardened concrete surface by chiseling away a portion of material.

Chute
A sloping trough or tube for conducting concrete, cement, aggregate, or other free-flowing materials from a higher to a lower point.

Coarse Aggregate
See Aggregate, Coarse

Coefficient of Thermal Expansion
Change in linear dimension per unit length or change in volume per unit volume per degree of temperature change.

Cohesion Loss
The loss of internal bond within a joint sealant material; noted by a noticeable tear along the surface and through the depth of the sealant.

Cohesiveness
The property of a concrete mix which enables the aggregate particles and cement paste matrix therein to remain in contact with each other during mixing, handling, and placing operations; the 'stick-togetherness' of the concrete at a given slump.

Cold Joint
A discontinuity produced when the concrete surface hardens before the next batch is placed against it.

Cold-Pour Sealant
Joint sealing materials that do not require heating for installation, usually consisting of a base of asphalt or bitumen.

Colloidal Mixer
Grout mixing device that uses a high velocity blade to shear or separate Cementitious particles in order to break surface tension and enable complete contact between the particles and mixing water.

Combined Aggregate Grading
Particle size distribution of a mixture of fine and coarse aggregate.

Compacting Factor
The ratio obtained by dividing the observed weight of concrete which fills a container of standard size and shape when allowed to fall into it under standard conditions of test, by the weight of fully compacted concrete which fills the same container.

Compaction
The process whereby the volume of freshly placed mortar or concrete is reduced to the minimum practical space, usually by vibration, centrifugation, tamping, or some combination of these; to mold it within forms or molds and around embedded parts and reinforcement, and to eliminate voids other than entrained air. See also Consolidation.

Compressible Insert
Board used to separate a partial-depth patch from an adjacent slab, usually consisting of a 12-mm thick Styrofoam or compressed fiber material that is impregnated with asphalt.

Compression Seal
See Preformed Compression Seal

Compression Test
Test made on a specimen of mortar or concrete to determine the compressive strength; in the United States, unless otherwise specified, compression tests of mortars are made on 50-mm cubes, and compression tests of concrete are made on cylinders 152 mm in diameter and 305 mm high.

Compressive Strength
The measured resistance of a concrete or mortar specimen to axial loading; expressed as pounds per square inch (psi) of cross-sectional area.

Concrete
A composite material that consists essentially of a binding medium in which is embedded particles or fragments of relatively inert material filler. In portland cement concrete, the binder is a mixture of portland cement and water; the filler may be any of a wide variety of natural or artificial aggregates.

Concrete Spreader
A machine designed to spread concrete from heaps already dumped in front of it, or to receive and spread concrete in a uniform layer.

Concrete, Normal-weight
Concrete having a unit weight of approximately 2400 kg/m3 made with aggregates of normal weight.

Concrete, Reinforced
Concrete construction that contains mesh or steel bars embedded in it.

Consistency
The relative mobility or ability of fresh concrete or mortar to flow. The usual measures of consistency are slump or ball penetration for concrete and flow for mortar.

Consolidate
Compaction usually accomplished by vibration of newly placed concrete to minimum practical volume, to mold it within form shapes or around embedded parts and reinforcement, and to reduce void content to a practical minimum.

Consolidation
The process of inducing a closer arrangement of the solid particles in freshly mixed concrete or mortar during placement by the reduction of voids, usually by vibration, centrifugation, tamping, or some combination of these actions; also applicable to similar manipulation of other cementitious mixtures, soils, aggregates, or the like. See also Compaction.

Construction Joint
The junction of two successive placements of concrete, typically with a keyway or reinforcement across the joint.

Continuously Reinforced Pavement
A pavement with continuous longitudinal steel reinforcement and no intermediate transverse expansion or contraction joints.

Contract
Decrease in length or volume. (See also Expand, Shrinkage, Swelling, and Volume Change.)

Contraction Joint
A plane, usually vertical, separating concrete in a structure of pavement, at a designated location such as to prevent formation of objectionable shrinkage cracks elsewhere in the concrete. Reinforcing steel is discontinuous.

Control Joint
See Contraction Joint

Core
A cylindrical specimen of standard diameter drilled from a structure or rock foundation to be bested in compression or examined petrographically.

Corner Break
A portion of the slab separated by a crack that intersects the adjacent transverse or longitudinal joints at about a 45º angle with the direction of traffic. The length of the sides is usually from 0.3 meters to one-half of the slab width on each side of the crack.

Course
In concrete construction, a horizontal layer of concrete, usually one of several making up a lift; in masonry construction, a horizontal layer of block or brick. See also Lift.

Cover
In reinforced concrete, the least distance between the surface of the reinforcement and the outer surface of the concrete.

CPCD
Concrete pavement contraction design; term used in Texas for jointed plain concrete pavement (see JPCP).

CPR
Concrete pavement restoration; the combination of available concrete repair techniques in one project.

Crack Saw
Small three-wheeled specialty saw useful for tracing the wandering nature of a transverse or longitudinal crack; usually contains a pivot wheel and requires a small diameter crack sawing blade.

Cracking
The process of contraction or the reflection of stress in the pavement.

Crazing
Minute surface pattern cracks in mortar or concrete due to unequal shrinkage or contraction on drying or cooling.

CRC Pavement
Continuously reinforced concrete pavement; see Continuously Reinforced Pavement.

Cross Section
The section of a body perpendicular to a given axis of the body; a drawing showing such a section.

Crushed Gravel
The product resulting from the artificial crushing of gravel with a specified minimum percentage of fragments having one or more faces resulting from fracture. See also Coarse Aggregate.

Crushed Stone
The product resulting from the artificial crushing of rocks, boulders, or large cobblestones, substantially all faces of which possess well-defined edges and have resulted from the crushing operation.

Crusher-run Aggregate
Aggregate that has been broken in a mechanical crusher and has not been subjected to any subsequent screening process.

Cubic Yard
Normal commercial units of measure of concrete volume, equal to 27 cubic feet.

Cure
Maintenance of temperature and humidity for freshly placed concrete during some definite period following placing and finishing to ensure proper hydration of the cement and proper hardening of the concrete.

Curing
The maintenance of a satisfactory moisture content and temperature in concrete during its early stages so that desired properties may develop.

Curing Blanket
A built-up covering of sacks, matting, Hessian, straw, waterproof paper, or other suitable material placed over freshly finished concrete. See also Burlap.

Curing Compound
A liquid that can be applied as a coating to the surface of newly placed concrete to retard the loss of water or, in the case of pigmented compounds, also to reflect heat so as to provide an opportunity for the concrete to develop its properties in a favorable temperature and moisture environment. See also Curing.

Damp
Either moderate absorption or moderate covering of moisture; implies less wetness than that connoted by 'wet,' and slightly wetter than that connoted by 'moist.' See also Moist and Wet.

Daylight
Refers to drainage (see below); a process that allows water to flow out of the subbase/base into ditches, instead of using pipes and sophisticated drainage systems.

DBI
A dowel bar inserter that places the load transfer bars into plastic concrete as part of the paving operation.

Deformed Bar
A reinforcing bar with a manufactured pattern of surface ridges that provide a locking anchorage with surrounding concrete.

Deformed Reinforcement
Metal bars, wire, or fabric with a manufactured pattern of surface ridges that provide a locking anchorage with surrounding concrete.

Density
Mass per unit volume; by common usage in relation to concrete, weight per unit volume, also referred to as unit weight.

Density Control
Control of density of concrete in field construction to ensure that specified values as determined by standard tests are obtained.

Design Strength
Load capacity of a member computed on the basis of allowable stresses assumed in design.

Deterioration
1) Physical manifestation of failure (e.g., cracking delamination, flaking, pitting, scaling, spalling, staining) caused by environmental or internal autogenous influences on rock and hardened concrete as well as other materials; 2) decomposition of material during either testing or exposure to service. See also Disintegration and Weathering.

Diamond Grinding
The process used to remove the upper surface of a concrete pavement to remove bumps and restore pavement rideability; also, equipment using many diamond-impregnated saw blades on a shaft or arbor to shave the surface of concrete slabs.

Disincentive
Deduction in payment resulting from a measured quality lower than specified for full payment.

Dispersing Agent
Admixtures capable of increasing the fluidity of pastes, mortar or concretes by reduction of inter-particle attraction.

Distress
Physical manifestation of deterioration and distortion in a concrete structure as the result of stress, chemical action, and/or physical action.

Dolomite
A mineral having a specific crystal structure and consisting of calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate in equivalent chemical amounts (54.27 and 45.73 percent by weight, respectively); a rock containing dolomite as the principal constituent.

Dowel
1) A load transfer device, commonly a plain round steel bar, which extends into two adjoining portions of a concrete construction, as at a joint in a pavement slab, so as to transfer shear loads; 2) a deformed reinforcing bar intended to transmit tension, compression, or shear through a construction joint.

Dowel Bar
See Dowel

Dowel Bar Retrofit
See Retrofit Dowel Bars

Dowel Basket
See Load-Transfer Assembly

Down Pressure
The force that keeps the grinding head on a diamond grinding machine cutting through bumps in the concrete surface and prevents the grinding head from riding up and merely tracing the bump profile.

Dry density
The mass per unit volume of a dry substance at a stated temperature. See also Specific Gravity.

Drainage
The interception and removal of water from, on, or under an area or roadway; the process of removing surplus ground or surface water artificially; a general term for gravity flow of liquids in conduits.

Drive Packer
For slab stabilization or slab jacking, tapering metal nozzle that seats into an injection hole by tapping or standing on footplate. Usually most appropriate for small-diameter holes.

Drop Hammer
Impact-type pavement breaking equipment.

Dry Mix
Concrete, mortar, or plaster mixture, commonly sold in bags, containing all components except water; also a concrete of near zero slump.

Dry Mixing
Blending of the solid materials for mortar or concrete prior to adding the mixing water.

Dry Process
In the manufacture of cement, the process in which the raw materials are ground, conveyed, blended, and stored in a dry condition. See also Wet Process.

Drying Shrinkage
Contraction caused by drying.

Dry-Rodded Volume
The volume that would be occupied by an aggregate if it were compacted dry under the standardized conditions used in measuring unit weight of aggregate.