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Concrete is one of the main construction materials commonly used in the field of civil engineering for infrastructure construction. Concrete itself is made from a mixture of cement, gravel, and sand mixed with water. Concrete is made from a mixture of cement, gravel, and sand mixed with water. 

That mixture has a certain mixing ratio which is adjusted to the function and purpose of the concrete itself.

Bonded by cement which mixed with water will bind the coarse and fine aggregates by filling the spaces between them. Therefore, the mixture ratio must be calculated properly in order to produce a good quality and proper concrete.

What Are the Commonly Used Concrete Composition Materials?

Within construction concrete, there are five commonly used concrete composition materials within on cubic meter, i.e.: 

• Water (around 9%): in building concrete, the water characteristics used must be clean, colorless and odorless, a clean potable water is also preferred. Undrinkable water can still be used in concrete mixtures with a compressive strength of 90% of fine water at seven days of age (refer to SNI 7974-2013).
• Cement (around 15%): as an adhesive, the preferred composition of cement is around 15%. The excessive usage of cement will increase the compressive strength of the concrete, but as the cement volume increases, the hydration heat in the concrete will also increase. This may cause thermal crackthermal crackthe concrete. If the amount of cement used is too little, the quality of the concrete will also decreases
• Fine aggregate (around 35%): one of the materials that has a fairly large volume in the composition of concrete. Within concrete, the composition of fine aggregate required is around 35%.
• Coarse aggregate (around 40%): the material that has the highest volume within 1 m3 of concrete. Determining the composition of coarse aggregate must be precise, because if too much coarse aggregate is used, the concrete will become rough and stiff so that when applied, it may lead to porous concrete structure.
• Air (Around 1%): materials that are intentionally or unintentionally present within concrete content. In a normal condition, the air content within concrete is around 0.7% up to 1

Additional Materials Used in Composing Concrete 

In addition to the five important concrete composition materials above, there are other additional materials to build concrete. What are they? Here’s the explanation:

1. Fly Ash

Fly ash Fly ash is the remains of burning coal which is generally produced by factories and coal powered power plants. Fly ash Fly ash is in the form of a fine powder. Fly ash Fly ash is a material with good pozzolanic properties. 

The content of fly ash fly ash mostly consists of Silicon Dioxide (SiO2), aluminum (Al2O3), iron (Fe2O3), and calcium (CaO), as well as potassium, sodium, titanium and sulfur in small quantities.

2. Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag/Ground Granulated Blastfurnace Slag (GGBFS/GGBS)

GGBFS/GGBS Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag/Ground Granulated Blastfurnace Slag is a refined GBFS which has cementitious properties like cement which can also be functioned as aggregate adhesive. 

At a good point of fineness, GGBFS/GGBS exhibits the same bonding qualities as Portland cement. Therefore, it can replace the function of Portland cement under a certain mass ratio. GGBFS used as a replacement from 10% up to 70%.

3. Silica Fume

It is a kind of fine pozzolanic material, whose silica composition is mostly produced from blast furnaces or waste from silicon or iron-silicon alloys (also known as combination of micro silica and silica fume).