Increasing Profits of Ready-Mix Concrete by Using Cutting-Edge New Additive

A new revolutionary patented additive for concrete was used in series of trials to check for its suitability to Ready-mix Concrete industry. Commercial production of Concrete was also taken up to check the fresh and hardened properties of additive incorporated concrete. The study showed that additive (commercially known as ICRETE) showed impressive results in concretes as it demonstrated comparable strengths even at reduced Cement contents. In addition the striking feature of the product is to improve the profits forReady-mix Concrete producer, without affecting the quality& durability.


Introduction
The recent times showed that Covid19 had almost irreversible effects on lives of not only individuals but also manyorganizations. The Ready-mix Concrete industry is an abused child in the construction industry, whose growth was further crippled by Covid 19 lock down. In such testing times, ICRETE was extensively tested to check its benefits for the Ready-mix Concrete. Initially both fresh and hardened properties were studied in reputed 3rd party laboratory. The fresh properties and hardened properties were found to be satisfactory. At this stage authors took the next step of exploring the possibilities of measuring the Cost benefits/savings on the material cost for each m3. This exercise was basically aimed to quantify the savings both in laboratory and field conditions in Readymix Concrete industry. The product in question is in powder form, agrayish color powder.

Materials
For the study 53 GRADE cement conforming to IS 269 was selected. GGBS was taken from JSW. The crushed aggregates and manufactured sands were used after checking all properties. The novel additive ICRETE properties have also been given. All the trails were conducted with a preselected PC based Hyperplasticiser. All the trials and production was repeated with same sources ofingredients.

Experiments
The lab experiments and later Real Time Ready-mix Concrete production were done to examine the efficacy of Novel additive for concrete against bench mark Ready-mix concrete mixes. Series of Trials were done in Laboratories of manyReady-mix Concrete companies in Bangalore, Mangalore, Cochin. The production of concrete using same mixes was done later. The mixes are given as below. The mixes with coding IC, means mixes incorporated with ICRETE. In general the net profit per m3 of Ready-mix Concrete in a professionally managed Ready-mix Concrete company is said to be 125 to 200Rs/m3.

Results
OPC1,OPC2, GG3 (Bench mark mixes) showed similar slumps to that of Cement Reduced ICRETE incorporated mixes. The novel additive did not change the workability and those mixes were found to be fit for pumpable mixes. Even at a reduced Cement content of 40kg/m3, the OPC(IC) mixes showed almost similar strengths. Table VI gives savings per m3 due to use of ICRETE.

Conclusions
• Based on both lab trials and Production results, we can see a saving of Rs 40 to 75Rs in various low to medium strength concretes. This translates to 32% to 60% increase in Net profit on lower end of Net profit and 20% to 37.5% increase on the higher end of net profit, when a normal 125 to 200Rs/m3 net profit is considered. Based on this even a worst case scenario of 20% jump in net profit is a big boost to a cash starved Ready-mixOrganization or any Readymix company. • The Cement (Cementitious)Reduced Icreteincorporated mixes have equally performed in terms of both slump& strength compared to reference Concrete. • As any cement(Cementitious) reductions, means lesser OPC usage, the concretes become more sustainable by using ICRETE. • The 3RD PARTY reports (which are not added part of this article) also depicted the said additive reduces permeability and all other durability properties are improved. • The Ready-mixCompanies after using ICRETE reported reduced plastic shrinkage cracks, which is another benefit of using the product.