Method of feeding water to a concrete mix

摘要

A method of and an apparatus for controlling the water added to concrete batches wherein for a given concrete recipe and batch size, while mixing same, a series of empirical values of water quantity and consistency of the resulting mix are determined by initially feeding a quantity of water to the batch reduced by an amount equivalent to the moisture content of the aggregates of the batch at maximum intrinsic moisture content and thereafter incrementally adding water while measuring the consistency after each water addition, and these values are stored for the respective recipe and batch size. For the addition of water to a further batch of the recipe, while mixing the further batch, an initial quantity of water is added to the further batch which is not reduced by the quantity of water equivalent to the moisture contents of the aggregates and the consistency of the further batch after the initial addition of water thereto is measured. Interpolation between stored water values corresponding to stored consistency values neighboring the measured consistency yields a first water quantity and interpolation between stored water values corresponding to stored consistency values for a set point consistency of the further batch saves a second water quantity. The additional water quantity equal to the difference is added in a single increment.