Mixing of Ingredients of Concrete:

Mixing is the most critical operation amongst all handling operation of concrete mix. Most of the properties of the concrete, both in fresh and hardened stage, mainly depend upon the way the concrete ingredients are mixed. The mixing of the ingredients should be thorough in order to ensure that cement-water paste completely covers the surfaces of aggregates. Basically, the mixing method should be such so as to ensure a uniform and homogeneous mix of good consistency and that too without segregation and bleeding. Mixing of concrete ingredients can be performed by hand mixing and machine mixing. For small works or less important works the hand mixing is used and for large and important work machine mixing is preferred. As the machine mixers are commonly available now-a-days, hand mixing is commonly prevented even for small works.