I want to write about this topic because I want my fellow quality engineers to really understand what are our responsibilities. I have seen some instances that concrete is being delivered on site, but no quality engineer or quality inspector was checking or maybe it is neglected.
Concrete arrived on site is one of the first priority to check by a quality engineer. Checking of concrete delivered on site is one of the responsibilities of a quality engineer. A consultant on a project will always seek for a quality engineer to manage the receipts of concrete upon arrival on site, so it may create an issue, noting that the concrete arrived at concrete checkpoint has not been checked by quality engineer.
Here is one of the biggest problems “If” you will not receive the concrete and get a copy of concrete delivery ticket. You will lose on logging your concrete actual quantity delivered on site which is to be collected by the quantity surveyors department from you. Because this department will track the quantity of materials delivered per month and use of cost controlling. So it is really important that you will focus on receiving the arrival of concrete on site.
Now, here are the step-by-step guide on how to receive delivered concrete on site in order to avoid losing concrete record, document and quantity that will create backfire on your department.
1. Check the delivery ticket of concrete
In the first arrival of fresh concrete or it may even all the arrivals, you as a designated quality engineer shall receive the concrete delivery ticket from the driver of a truck mixer or if it is received by your assistant just get and check if the concrete delivery ticket conforms to the approved concrete mix design that the concrete delivered is for.
2. Check the temperature of fresh concrete
After taking the sample of fresh concrete from a truck mixer just make sure that before making further test, take a temperature of concrete. See photo above. The temperature of fresh concrete shall not exceed 30 degrees Celsius.
3. Check the slump test
Actually the slump test should be done every truck delivery and you should be taking that, but sometimes it depends on the volume of the concrete program. It is quite exhaustive, if you have let us say 3,000 cubic meters in one night casting and then you would check almost 333 trucks if a truck mixer is carrying 9 cubic meters, so it’s quite tedious. In this reason, the consultant will most probably consider checking alternately or might be even better randomly.
4. Obtain cube or cylinder sample
If you had just checked the slump test, then tell your assistant to take the samples for the required tests that mentioned in this article “Top 6 important quality tests of concrete.”
5. Fill the concrete pour card
When you have completed all the necessary tests of fresh concrete, the next thing to do is to fill the concrete pour card with all the data that you have collected. The concrete pour card shall be kept for reference whenever you will send a concrete test request to an approved external laboratory, but not only that you can track the actual quantity of concrete delivered on site. The concrete pour card shall be maintained and continually use every concrete casting program regardless of what type of concrete received on site. It might be asked by a consultant to submit a concrete pour card. A sample of concrete pour card is shown below.
| S/N | Date Delivered | Time Batched | Time of Arrival | Time of completion casting | Location | Concrete Grade | Quantity | Temp. (C) | Cubes/Cylinder |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sept. 20, 2015 | 7:00 AM | 7:40 AM | 8:00 AM | Slab on Grade | C50/20 | 8 | 26 | 6 |
| 2 | Sept. 20, 2015 | 7:10 AM | 7:50 AM | 8:10 AM | Slab on Grade | C50/20 | 9 | 27 | |
| 3 | Sept. 20, 2015 | 7:20 AM | 8:00 AM | 8:20 AM | Slab on Grade | C50/20 | 7.5 | 28 | |
| TOTAL | 24.5 CU. M. |
Now, if you will follow these steps, you will surely comply the quality procedure on receiving concrete on site and make sure that all the concrete delivered on site are recorded.