The world has seen such an upheaval of sorts with the pandemic that has damaged growth in many industries. Although most of us do not think of this, but one of the fields that has seen a huge down trend has been that of the construction industry. Rising construction costs, a shortage of labour availability and many more such disturbing challenges have continually impaired a revenue generating business. However, it is heartening to note that as time passed, innovations and trending ideas has gradually revived this industry.

Accepting changes and upgrades in the construction trends has levelled the construction industry to become more competitive and valuable. Here are some constructions trends to watch out for in the next 3 years:

1. Augmented Reality: The two technologies that are at the intersection in the building construction services are Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR).

AR creates a computer-generated image for the user’s view, whereas, VR can replace the real world with a simulated environment. These two technologies work together as AR is taking over the emerging trends along with VR in the construction arena. AR enables the power of visualising the actual world with the help of a camera lens. It displays critical information about the equipment and construction ideas which can also practically display the associated risks and possible failures. This helps in understanding and correcting the mistakes before even putting them on-site.

2. BIM (Building Information Modelling): BIM is another hot trending construction technology. It can prove to be a game-changer for the building construction service industry as it can represent project development and highly collaborative surroundings in a 3D format. This technology has several benefits for construction companies such as easy accessibility of resources, enhancement in collaboration and convenience in connectivity, throughout the project.
3. Robotic technology: As technology is pacing ahead in the recent years, having robots around in every aspect of life will not be a surprise. This technology is quite relatable when it comes to the construction industry. In the coming years, robots can become the commanding force in the construction industry and they can bring more accuracy and precision to construction.
4. Mobile and cloud technology: The recent technology trends that are ruling the world is mobile and Cloud. Cloud technology enables the storage of unlimited data and retrieving options without burdening the hardware device. With the prevalence of Cloud and mobile technology, it has brought about an increase in competition and hence, to remain in the competition, the best construction material company in Jharkhand is keeping pace with the latest technology in Cloud and mobile.
5. Usage of drones: In this rapidly evolving world, Drone technology is reliable and very helpful for the construction industry. The drone can show a 3D view of the site from above, withstanding climatic extremes, and can help identify solutions for the challenges on the ground.

Constructions, bridges and flyovers, dams, thermal and hydel power plants, industrial structures, high-rise buildings, and subterranean platforms in metro and fast transportation systems are some of the general places TMT bars are commonly used. TMT Bars are thermo-mechanically treated for high yield strength using world-leading temp core-based technology.

Why can’t we simply pour concrete? What’s the role of TMT rebar?

‘Reinforced’ concrete is currently used in almost every structure. The compressive strength of concrete is great (the ability to withstand loads that tend to compress). Concrete, on the other hand, requires steel reinforcement due to its poor tensile strength (ability to withstand elongating loads) and ductility (ability to deform under forces that tend to elongate). Steel, on the other hand, is extremely tensile and ductile. Steel and concrete, when used together, have the potential to withstand all types of forces that can be applied to a structure. Furthermore, when the temperature rises, both steel and concrete expand similarly. This makes them an extremely attractive pair.

Consider steel and concrete to be close companions that compensate for one other’s flaws! Simultaneously, they share characteristics that make them an excellent match!

Why is it called TMT rebar?

Because of the manufacturing process, the best quality TMT bar in Bihar is known as Thermo Mechanically Treated rebars. Water is used to cool hot rolled steel. The core cools faster than the surrounding surface. The outer surface becomes hard and robust as a result of rapid cooling. The core, on the other hand, stays soft and ductile due to the slower cooling rate. The steel is also more corrosion resistant as a result of the manufacturing process.

TMT rebars are Fe550D grade of iron. What exactly does that imply?

The yield stress in N/mm2 is denoted by the number 550. This is the point at which steel begins to ‘give’ or deform. When a force of less than 550 N/mm2 is applied, the TMT rebar will revert to its original shape after the force is withdrawn. To put the great tensile strength of steel into perspective, 550 N/mm2 is the ground pressure imposed by nearly 2,200 elephants stacked on top of each other! The strength of Steel is extremely high tensile.

The letter ‘D’ stands for Ductility, when it comes to the 550D grade, failure usually occurs at 625 N/mm2 or higher. In intense loading circumstances, such as earthquakes, higher ductility is advantageous.

TMT rebar has ribs. Why aren’t they smooth, shiny surfaces?

The ribs on TMT bars from the best saria suppliers in Bihar help the rebar grasp the concrete well. Because of the grip, the concrete and steel become composite materials. After setting, the TMT rods will be difficult to remove from the concrete.

TMT bars’ characteristics

• Withstands earthquakes
• Increased tensile strength and ductility
• Thermal resistance is high.
• Improved adaptability
• Weldability is excellent, with no loss of strength at welded joints.
• Cost-efficient

How are Shyam Steel TMT rebars better than other TMT rebars?

Shyam Steel TMT Bar Manufacturers are frequently referred to as a commodity, with all brands in the market being equivalent. They prioritize research & development behind the scenes, paying close attention to every element of the manufacturing process. 

Shyam Steel TMT being one of the top iron saria suppliers in Bihar assures that every piece of TMT rebar not only meets but also surpasses the set criteria by a significant margin.

The percentage of alloying elements such as sulphur, phosphorus, and manganese is critical for TMT rebar performance. Many construction failures have been documented as a result of the percentage of these alloying elements not complying with industry standards. However, controlling the proportion of these alloying components in the manufacturing process might be challenging at times. Some businesses even make concessions on costly alloying materials such as manganese. 

The best place to buy your TMT material in Bihar is at https://shyamsteel.com/products/tmt-rebars/. Place your order today.

So, if you are looking to keep all these materials safely and in the best shape to use them this segment will be helpful. Here you’ll learn the 5 best tips that will be simple yet effective. Implementing them all in the right way will help you to handle and store all the construction materials properly.

Let’s talk about these top 5 tips:

1. Have Trained Workers on the Site

As we discussed earlier, there are countless risks involved when it comes to material handling and storing, and few of such materials can turn out to be harmful to your workers. However, the best practices in such cases would be to have trained workers who know the best practices to avoid such incidents to take place keeping in mind the dangers involved.

So, before getting the construction process to see its first day, ensure you ask all your workers to go through the safety training programs to maintain their safety. Workers equipped with the best measures and knowledge will be best to be around other workers and construction sites.

2. Same Materials Should be Stored Together

Various construction materials and chemicals are prone to reach each other once they are stored together. For example, few highly flammable materials can react to each other instantly. Such a storage system poses a lot of threats to workers and materials all together.

Once a fire takes place in construction materials in the storage area, it will increase the overall budget of the construction project and the owner would have to increase the same to go out of the shop and replace the lost construction materials. Hence, ensure that such materials or chemicals are always stored in different chambers or storage sections.

3. Choosing the Right Storage Space

In the places like India, different states witness variable weather conditions and the engineers similarly plan the project construction. Construction materials can also be affected in such varying weather conditions. To tackle the same and retain the quality of the materials, store all building construction materials in Assam concerning the favourable room temperature condition and keep them covered until used. Additionally, you can go ahead to take an extra step ensuring no construction materials are placed directly on the bare ground. This will help these materials to steer clear from moisture, maintaining their true quality.

4. Consider Storage Weight limits

Construction material comes with a dedicated storage limit that can be seen indicated on its outer cover. Not following the same can be harmful to all your workers under easy breakage and fall. The materials can also fall and break making you be the victim of unfortunate conditions.

5. Don’t Compromise on the Security

Construction materials aren’t inexpensive and in case of theft or loss, you would be looking at spending a huge sum of money to replace them. If you think your construction site looks unsafe because of thieves or intruders, consider bringing uptight security while keeping them stored in dedicated sections. In case the conditions ask you to leave or store the construction materials on the job site itself, bring in an additional layer of security despite tight security. Invest in installing multiple security cameras like CCTV cameras and always take a daily count before the starting of the day and at the end of it.

But despite carrying so much importance, not everyone can control the quality during their project. Studies show that more than 50 per cent of construction defects are the result of human factors such as unskilled labour or lack of supervision while 12 per cent is the result of material and system failure.

If you are looking to ensure construction quality control, these 6 steps would help you to a great deal:

1. Invest in the Correct Materials

Various studies have suggested that skilled trade workers are hard to find whereas 80% of contractors mention the hassles they faced hiring skilled workers while another 35% believe that it would become more difficult in the coming future.

So once you get started with your project, it is important to invest in the right workers during the initial stage. Having the right team will ensure the job is delivered correctly with the expectations of the customer maintained.

Make sure that each member of your team understands the requirements of the project. Apart from the safety, indicate that poor quality won’t be acceptable.

2. Invest in the Correct Materials

Once you start preparing for the project after understanding the customer’s needs, ensure you never look to compromise with the quality of the materials. When you look to buy construction materials online in Bihar, ensure that they meet the standard requirements along with the project specifications. Once you are satisfied with the right specifications, go ahead with the placing of the order.

For instance, your electrician should know all types of wirings and which one would be perfect for the current project. Check the materials personally as well once they arrive to negate any possibility of damages or incorrect specifications.

3. Maintain Safety & Compliance

Apart from keeping the workers’ safety as the priority, look to maintain proper safety and compliance to prevent any improper work to take place during the project. For instance, if your workers are tired, they will look to find shortcuts in their work or may do a misjudgment which can cost majorly to the project or deviate it from the defined timeline. Ask them to take regular breaks and avoid overtime if one’s stress.

4. Maintain Completed Project

The worst nightmare for an ongoing project is the weather since such things are out of control. Cover all the scratch or damaged potential surfaces completely with cardboard, timber or other such materials until the project is ready. Best building materials in Bihar that comes in plastic wrappings should be left as it is until it has to be used.

5. Steer Clear of Scope Creep

Regardless of the size of the company, the industry has witnessed instances where a company found itself amidst scope creep. When the changes keep coming from the client, sooner or later you will find yourself in a situation where you have deviated from the scope of the project to an unreasonable level. In this time, workers also look to find shortcuts while lower quality is used to save cost. Get in touch with the stakeholders regarding the scope and make sure everyone is on the same page. It’s important to stick to the quality standards and expectations of the client.

6. Get rid of deficiencies immediately

You might encounter various deficiencies while testing and auditing the project. To deal with the same, come up with a concrete policy whether it is maintaining the expertise or quality. Ignoring the deficiencies for too long will impact the project and your reputation.

Purpose of Curing

The reaction between cement and water is called hydration. It is an exothermic reaction (which releases heat). After adding water to the concrete mix, hydration starts, which tends to dry the concrete quickly. Hence concrete is kept moist by curing, to stop it from drying out before attaining its maximum strength.

The factors required for curing of the structural elements are:

1. Specified Strength of Concrete
2. Grades of concrete
3. Temperature – The chemical reaction between cement and water in concrete releases heat, which requires constant adding of water to complete hydration. In summer fifty percent of water is evaporated. So, more water is needed during sunny days.
4. Size and Shape of the Concrete member
5. Economy
6. Material availability
7. Labor force
8. in situ versus plant concrete production
9. Aesthetics

Curing Methods

Curing methods can be classified into three basic methods

• Water Addition Method

This method keeps the surface of the concrete moist by ponding, spraying/sprinkling, fogging, misting, wet burlap, and other water absorbent materials

• Water Retention Method

This method prevents loss of moisture from the concrete by covering it with polythene sheeting or leaving the formwork in places

• Temperature control Method:

This involves live steam, heating coils, electrically heated forms or pads

Considerations for selecting a curing method:

a) The type of construction such as those involving large horizontal surface areas as in roads, floors, and airfields, or, those involving formed concrete in walls, columns, beams, cantilevers, and arches, etc

b) The place of construction, whether indoors and damp situations (as inside a building) or outdoor

c) The weather conditions where concrete is being laid in cold climates or in dry and hot weather

The methods in detail:

Water Addition Method

Water addition is considered as the best method of curing of concrete as it satisfies all the requirements of curing – absorption of the heat of hydration, promotion of hydration, and elimination of shrinkage. Water curing is carried out by adding water to the surface of concrete to ensure that it is kept continuously moist. The water used for this purpose should not be more than about 5°C cooler than the concrete surface. Spraying warm concrete with cold water may give rise to ‘thermal shock’ that may contribute to cracking.

Water curing can be done in the following ways:

i. Spraying or Fogging.

ii. Ponding.

iii. Wet covering.

iv. Immersion.

i. Spraying of Water:

This method is ideally suited for almost all types of construction in most conditions. Vertical reclining walls, plastered surfaces, concrete columns, etc. are cured by spraying water. It involves spraying water with the help of house pipes connected to the main water supply lines. However in tall structures, water spraying at top levels may hamper work on the lower floors.

ii. Ponding of Water:

Ponding is a quick, inexpensive and effective form of curing when there is a ready supply of good ‘dam’ material (e.g. clay soil), a supply of water, and the ‘pond’ does not interfere with subsequent building operations.

In this method, pavement slabs, roof slabs, etc., are kept under water by making small ponds. It is the next common method of curing of concrete suited best for horizontal surface areas such as roads, floors, and slabs.

Small ponds, not more than 5 cm deep, are made over the surface by raising temporary barriers.

These ponds are kept filled with water for several days. In hot weather, ponding is the ideal method of curing of concrete. It has the added advantage of helping to maintain a uniform temperature on the surface of the slab

iii. Wet Coverings:

In some cases, wet coverings such as wet gunny bags, jute matting, and straw are wrapped to the vertical surface for keeping the concrete wet.

For horizontal surfaces, sawdust, earth or sand are used as wet coverings to keep the concrete in a damp condition for a longer time.

Another method, suitable for flat, columnar, and vertical surfaces (after the formwork is removed) is covering the surface with straw, burlap, hessian or jute soaked in water. These are kept moist for the entire period of curing. Fabrics are particularly useful on vertical surfaces since they help distribute water evenly over the surface and even where not in contact with it, will prevent the surface evaporation from within the concrete and supply the additional water required for hydration.

iv. Immersion:

The precast concrete items are usually immersed in curing tanks for a specific duration.

Water Retention Method by Curing Compounds(Membrane Method)

This may be broadly described as the chemical method of curing of concrete.

In this method, some suitable chemical compounds dissolved in solvents are sprayed over the fresh concrete to be cured. The solvent evaporates, leaving behind a thin film of the chemical compound spread over the concrete surface.

This film prevents evaporation from the concrete.

Thus, if enough water has already been added at the time of preparation of concrete, it will set and harden nicely without much addition of water. The thick film of chemical compound starts peeling off after some time (2-4 weeks) leaving behind the properly cured concrete. Most curing compounds consist of different types of resins.

A major disadvantage of this method is that continuous concreting is not possible. The cured surface will not bond firmly with a new layer unless the chemical is completely removed from it.

Still, on flat surfaces of single thickness, the membrane method is used extensively.

Temperature control Method

The development of the strength of concrete is a function of not only time but also of temperature.

When concrete is subjected to a higher temperature, it accelerates the hydration process which results in faster development of strength.

The exposure of concrete to higher temperature is done in the following manners:

i. Steam curing at ordinary temperature

ii. Steam curing at high temperature

iii. Curing by infrared radiation

iv. Electrical curing

 i. Steam curing at ordinary temperature

This method is mostly adopted for prefabricated concrete elements; application of steam to construction will be a difficult task. For steam curing, the concrete elements are stored in a chamber. The chamber should be large enough to hold a day’s production.

The door is closed, and steam is applied, either continuously or intermittently. Accelerated hydration takes place at this higher temperature and concrete attains the 28-day strength in about 3 days.

In large prefabricated factories, they have tunnel curing arrangements. However, concrete subjected to a higher temperature at the early period of hydration is found to lose some of the strength at a later stage.

Very fresh concrete should not be subjected suddenly to high temperature. A certain delay period after casting the concrete is desirable.

ii. Steam curing at high temperature and pressure

Unlike ordinary steam curing, this curing is carried out in a closed chamber. The super-heated steam at high temperature and high pressure is applied to the concrete. This process is also called ‘autoclaving.’

The following advantages are derived from this process:

a. In one day or less the concrete develops the strength that normally cured concrete gains in twenty-eight days. Also, it does not lose strength at a later stage.

b. This concrete shows higher resistance to sulfate attack, freezing & thawing action and chemical action.

c. High-pressure steam cured concrete shows lower drying shrinkage and moisture movement.

 iii. Curing by infrared radiation

Curing of concrete by infrared radiations has been practiced in very cold climatic regions of Russia.

 iv. Electrical curing

Another method of curing concrete, which applies mostly to very cold climatic regions, is using electricity. This method is not likely to find much use in ordinary temperatures due to economic reasons.

What is the Right Time for Concrete Curing?

The right time for concrete curing depends on several factors. Like, temperature, the evaporation rate, moisture content in the air, etc.

According to ACI-308, three phases of concrete curing should be done.

(1) Initial Curing.

This process is also called Bleeding of Concrete.

After placing of concrete, the water starts bleeding from concrete and rises from its pores. After rising of water, evaporation takes place, and the water starts disappearing from the surface due to evaporation.

Bleeding of concrete depends on many factors like thickness, length, temperature, etc. So, to reduce the loss of water and prevent shrinkage, initial curing of concrete is required. Evaporation reducers can be used for this process.

(2) Intermediate Curing of Concrete.

This process is done when finishing work is finished before the final setting of cement. It is required as water plays an important role in the strength of concrete.

(3) Final Concrete Curing.

After the final setting of concrete, it should be cured so that one can prevent the loss of more water and increase the strength of concrete.