Shotcrete Curing - Seeking Practical Practice

[BigH]

G'day all

Every specification says that shotcrete needs to be cured. Some exceptions if the humidity is greater than 85% or 90%.

As kind of an unscientific poll, in practice, how many of my colleagues have actually seen shotcrete cured?

 

[emmgjld]

Curing Compound sprayed on.
Not much but, about as much as most SOG get!

 

[miningman]

yeah ive had to do some of this but it was in an underground environment where humidity is typically quite high. We would spray the shotcrete with water as often as we'd feel it was beneficial, and MAYBE take some test cores after 7 or 30 days. Never had a problem but then me and my colleagues generally know more about these things than the typical young enginerer , provided by the local enginerring company , who was supposedly looking over our shoulders.

 

[cvg]

Curing Compound sprayed on

 

[Ron]

I'm old school.... water, water, water

 

[BigH]

@Ron - I agree but the problem I have is that no one wants to cure shotcrete - excuse after excuse after excuse . . . sand but, in Asia, true.

 

[Canuck65]

I am old school as well. Wet curing benefits the short and long term performance of the concrete.

Make sure curing is part of the specifications/contract/design. Make a separate item for curing in the schedule of prices ... and if they want to get paid, they had better do it.

Request a written plan for execution of all the concrete work, to be submitted a minimum of 3 weeks prior to any concrete work being started ... and reject it as many times as you need to until they have curing procedures written into the plan.