Extended workability, controlled over several hours, is especially important for urban construction sites with congested traffic, or remote areas resulting in long transportation times. At the same time, once the concrete is placed, fast curing is of utmost importance to meet tight construction schedules. Sika ViscoFlow® is a workability enhancing admixture, based on a new in-house-developed polymer which significantly prolongs the workability time of the fresh concrete and still ensures equally fast strength development. The workability time can be modified in accordance
to job site requirements.
Since more than a hundred years, Sika paves the way for progress in concrete solutions by developing and marketing admixtures and additives for use in concrete, cement and mortar production. Sika has the technologies to make this building material considerably more environmentally friendly.
Concrete Admixtures are liquid or powder additives. They are added to the concrete mix in small quantities to meet specific requirements as:
- To fix fresh concrete behaviour
- To control setting or hardening
- To increase the durability
Concrete Admixtures and the Environment
Admixtures should be non-toxix, water-soluble and biodegradable.
Tests on pulverized concrete specimens show that small quanitities of superplasticizer and their decomposition products are leachable in principle. However, the materials degrade well and do not cause any relevant ground water pollution. Even under the most extreme conditions, only small quantities of organic carbon leaches into the water.
Concrete admixtures are appropriate for their application and when correctly used are harmless to humans, animals and the environment.
The technical benefits of superplasticizer for clients and construction professionals outweigh the occurrence of low, controllable emissions during use. Concrete admixtures merit being rated environmentally-friendly because they create negligible air, soil or ground water pollution.