Customer Reviews

Properties of Concrete: Fourth and Final Edition

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This was the recommended textbook for my undergraduate program in civil engineering in Pakistan for the course titled, guess what "Properties of Concrete". I am now a practising water and wastewater engineer, and my main focus is not concrete. However, I have very good memories of the ease with which I could follow the text even at the undergraduate level, and also how the book was comprehensive enough to give almost all the answers as far as I was concerned. Excellent book, and very well written.

This is all the basic information you will need for concrete mix design. However there is a lot of new techniques not covered. Great if you're getting started in decorative concrete and want to get up to speed.

This is a book that is a "MUST HAVE" for Civil Engineers, concrete lab technicians, builders, contractors and just about anyone working with concrete. It's written in language that is both technical but understandable enough that just about anyone with with some experience in concrete to understand. This book has more technical information then any book I've seen, but with enough explanations to make anyone come away feeling like a concrete mix expert. If you've ever wanted to know or understand any aspect of concrete, it's in this book.

The physical description of the book in Amazon was "very good", but it was virtually in new condition, but with a nice discount.

I receipt the book very quikly and in excelent conditios of use, as a new book.

Adam Neville read Civil Engineering at Queen Mary College...
He received the Institution of Structural Engineers Research Award and Reinforced Concrete Association Medal.
He is a member of various technical committees of the American Concrete Institute, Institution of Structural Engineers and Canadian Standards Association.

[from the back of jacket]

Concrete and steel are the two most commonly used structural materials. They sometimes complement one another, and sometimes compete with one another so that structures of a similar type and function can be built in either of these materials.

And yet, the engineer often knows less about the concrete of which the structure is made than about the steel.

Steel is manufactured under carefully controlled conditions, its properties are determined in a laboratory and described in a manufacturer's certificate. Thus the designer need only specify the steel as complying with a relevant standard, and the site engineer's supervision is limited to the workmanship of the connexions between the individual steel members.

On a concrete building site the situation is totally different.

It is true that the quality of cement is guaranteed by the manufacturer in a manner similar to steel and provided a suitable cement is chosen it is hardly ever a cause of faults in a concrete structure. But it is concrete and not cement that is the building material. The structural members are generally made in situ, and their quality is almost exclusively dependent on the workmanship of concrete making and placing.


The disparity in the methods of steel and concrete making is, therefore, clear, and the importance of the control of the quality of concrete work on the site is apparent. Furthermore, as the trade of a concretor has not yet the education and the tradition of some of the other building trades, an engineer's supervision on the site is essential.

These facts must be borne in mind by the designer, as careful and intricate design can be easily vitiated if the properties of the actual concrete differ from those assumed in the design calculations.
From the above it must not be concluded that making good concrete is difficult.

"Bad" concrete---often a substance of the consistence of soup, hardening into a honeycombed, non-homogeneous mass---is made simply by mixing cement, aggregate and water. Surprisingly, the ingredients of a good concrete are exactly the same, and it is only the "know-how," often without additional cost or labour, that is responsible for the difference.

What, then, is good concrete?
There are two overall criteria:
the concrete has to be satisfactory in its hardened state, and also in its fresh state while being transported from the mixer and placed in the formwork.

The requirements in the fresh state are that the consistence of the mix be such that it can be compacted by the means desired without excessive effort, and also that the mix be cohesive enough for the method of placing used not to produce segregation with a consequent lack of homogeneity of the finished product.

The usual primary requirement of a good concrete in its hardened state is a satisfactory compressive strength.
This is aimed at not only so as to ensure that the concrete can withstand a prescribed compressive stress but also because many other desired properties of concrete are concomitant with high strength.

The various properties of concrete---density, durability, tensile strength, impermeability, resistance to abrasion, resistance to sulphate attack, and many others---are discussed in the appropriate chapters.

Interest in these properties of concrete has recently been heightened since modern specifications tend to state requirements for particular properties of concrete rather than simply to stipulate the quality and quantity of the constituent materials.

A knowledge of the properties of concrete thus makes possible the selection of a more suitable and more economical mix.

Interest in concrete making has also been aided by the development of equipment which leads to improved uniformity of concrete, with the associated economic and technical advantages.
In a book of this size it is not possible to cover the whole field of concrete:
the author selects what he considers most important or most interesting or simply what he knows most about but the emphasis is on an integrated view of the properties of concrete and on the underlying scientific reasons, for, as

HENRI POINCARE SAID,
AN ACCUMULATION OF FACTS IS NO MORE A SCIENCE THAN A HEAP OF STONES IS A HOUSE.

[from the preface by A.M.N.]

I'm a graduate student now and my field is creep and shrinkage of concrete.with those books which written by Prof.Neville,I've begun my graduate study and made some progress.These books are really a big help to me