Concrete Testing Services

Concrete is the most common man-made material on earth. It is often used in harsh environments, leading to the rapid deterioration of poor-quality concrete mixes. Element's concrete testing services ensure the concrete used is of consistently high quality and meets strict industry specifications and intended design life.

We offer a broad range of laboratory and on-site concrete and aggregate testing and inspection services to evaluate new materials, assess the condition of in-situ concrete, or demonstrate compliance with regulations and quality standards.

 Element operates comprehensively equipped accredited materials testing laboratories specifically devoted to the testing and analyzing fresh and hardened concrete. 

For over 20 years, our global laboratories have been entrusted with testing concrete mixes such as standard grades, AdMixture, shotcrete, self-compacting, and other high-performance modified mixes in some of the world's most iconic and complex concrete structures.

Concrete testing services 

From pre-construction review, concrete mix design/evaluation, and concrete batch plant monitoring to fresh concrete testing on-site and hardened concrete testing in the laboratory, Element support you at every stage of your project's construction. 

We provide a wide range of concrete testing services in accordance with internationally recognized BS, EN, and ASTM standards:

• Full trial mix facilities with Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) experience, rapid hardening, sulfate-resisting, Ground Granulated Blast-furnace Slag (GGBS), fly ash, and silica fume mixes with accelerating admixtures, retarding admixtures, water-reducing admixtures, and superplasticizers.
• Fresh concrete workability testing, including slump test, compacting factor, sampling, flow table test, air content test, density testing, and setting time. 
• Fresh concrete properties: bleed test, water soluble chloride, conventional dry material content, ash content, silicon dioxide content, capillary absorption, density, yield, cement content, and water/cement ratio analysis, compressive strength, increase in consistence, retention of consistence, temperature, pH value, alkali content, and air content.
• Hardened concrete properties covering static modulus of elasticity and poission's ratio, cylinder, core, and cube compressive strength tests, water absorption / permeability / penetration, density tests, surface absorption, flexural strength, tensile splitting strength, creep, alkali-silica petrographic, and SFRC flexural tensile strength Limit of Proportionality (LOP).
• Hardened concrete durability includes chloride migration (NT Build 492), Rapid Chloride Permeability (RCPT), water penetration and Initial Surface Absorption (ISAT), density, water absorption, Alkali reactivity (mortar bar method), coefficient of permeability, Sulphate resistance, carbonation depth and drying shrinkage.
• Hardened concrete analysis covering cement and aggregate content, water permeability, aggregate grading, original water content, type of cement, apparent chloride coefficient of cementitious mixtures by bulk diffusion, silane content by Py-GC, type of aggregate, chloride and sulfate content
• Self Compacting Concrete testing covering slump flow, V-funnel, L box, sieve segregation, J ring and Adiabatic tests
• AdMixture testing to include testing for water reduction, compressive strength, air content pressure, increase or retention of consistence, bleeding, setting time, capillary absorption, density, pH value, alkali / silicon dioxide / ash / water content. 

Concrete Temperature Control and Testing

All concretes generate heat as the cementitious materials hydrate. Most of this heat generation occurs in the first days after placement. For thin items such as pavements, heat dissipates almost as quickly as it is generated. For thicker concrete sections (mass concrete), heat dissipates more slowly than it is generated. The net result is that mass concrete can get hot. Management of these temperatures is necessary to prevent damage, minimize delays, and meet project specifications.

Testing via adiabatic methods determines the quantity of heat released from the concrete during its hardening process in an adiabatic condition at regular intervals from the just after casting of the specimen. The test is carried out using an adiabatic calorimeter which has been constructed to minimize the heat loss from the concrete sample. A sample of freshly mixed concrete is placed in a container which is then introduced into the adiabatic calorimeter and the internal temperature of the hardening concrete is measured.

In large concrete elements, the interior is considered to be hydrating in an essentially adiabatic process. Because of the low thermal conductivity of concrete, the heat of hydration from its interior is prevented from being released into the environment, thus a negligible amount of heat is lost. Element Singapore and Malaysia have developed an adiabatic calorimeter that can be used to determine maximum concrete temperatures and temperature differences for any concrete mix design.

Our experts have unrivaled experience in enacting design trial mix and quality control testing programs that ensure  the compressive strength of concrete and durability criteria is maintained. 

For more information about our concrete testing services, or to request a quote, contact us today.