Mix Design of a Man

I think character or the personality of a person is a mixture of Attitude, Knowledge, Skills and Luck. In my way of thinking, the correct mixture of above should always make a strong character and it will make a person who withstands to various types of problems which he comes across in day to day life.

Above phenomenon is more or less very similar to ‘Concrete’ that we use to build our homes, building, bridges etc. Concrete is a mix of four ingredients which are Cement, Course Aggregate (ගල්), Fine Aggregate (වැලි) and Water.

In Concrete, cement act as the bonding agent (අලවන එක) and it keeps intact all the coarse and fine aggregate (ගල් සහ වැලි) together. In our real life the ‘Attitude’ is doing the business for us, what cement does in concrete. One’s attitudes are the most significant and it do prevail upon the whole personality of the person and it will determine that ‘who the person is’.



Course aggregates are much stronger than the concrete which they are made. In a real life story ‘Knowledge’ tends to strengthen the character, where relationship between the two entities is very much similar to coarse aggregate in concrete.

Just the possession of knowledge is not very helpful, without the adequate 'Skills' to demonstrate and use of the acquired knowledge.( පසේ බුදු වගෙ) When it comes to concrete the story is not differ, as without fine aggregate, the voids between course aggregates are larger which it cause to inadequate bond between aggregates and will provide a weak concrete.

The fourth contribution factor for the person’s personality is Luck. Too much of luck does not provide good personalities. All the good leaders have experienced the taste of failures in their endeavours and little bit of luck has done the trick for them while making the strong personalities of them. (Luck favours the brave...). As luck makes easy for the life, water will contribute the easy handling of concrete. Anyhow, too much of water will spoil the strength of the concrete and little bit of water will give a less workability in the plastic stage of the concrete. (ඒ කියන්නෙ වතුර නැතිව කොන්ක්රිට් අනන්න අමරුයි කියන එක). So, correct amount of water is very important factor in concrete and similarly correct amount of Luck do wonders for the people and to make strong characters of them, as well.

So friends if you happened to see a concrete mix please do not forget this and try to look in to your character and find which you have to acquire more in order to strengthen your own character.......




To the technical oriented readers above content may be not sufficient in depth and for them I'll add a simplified concrete mix design procedure additionally, which may useful to them in their engineering careers.

Simplified Method for Grade 30 Concrete Mix Design

• Keep in mind generally cement content in concrete;
Grade 25 - 300 – 325 kg/m3
Grade 30 - 340 – 370 kg/m3
Grade 35 - 400 – 425 kg/m3
Grade 40 - 450– 480 kg/m3
Max. Cement Content - 500 kg/m3

• Assume;
Cement content = 360 kg/m3
Water Content = 180 kg/m3 (50% of Cement content)
Cement + Water Content = 540 kg/m3

• We know weight of Concrete = 24 kN/m3
= 2440kg/m3
• Then Calculate the weight of Aggregate (fine and Course aggregate)
= 2440 – 540
= 1900 kN/m3
• Generally;
Course: Fine Aggregate = 1.5 : 1 (weight basis)

• Now you can find proportions of course and fine aggregates as;
Course = 1140 kN/m3
Fine = 760 kN/m3
• Mix = 1:2.11:3.16



Note:
 Carry out more trials and check 7th and 28th day tests. According the results select the most suitable mix.
 Replace 5% of fine aggregate with silica fume. You will get more suitable concrete to pump.




P:S- 1.)thank you for the suggestion of Anonymous ( Can you sing a Bridge) who gave me this idea and encouraged to write this.

2.) Thank you for, Eng. Priyantha in his support for technical matters of this blog.