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What is Ready Mixed Concrete?
 Ready
Mixed Concrete (RMC) is the concrete delivered at site or into
a purchaser's vehicle, in a plastic condition and requiring no further
treatment before being placed in the position in which it is to
set and harden.
RMC was introduced in the early 1930s in the United Kingdom and
has since been in usage in the west. In developed countries its
usage has been over 70%. In India, the concept was introduced only
in the early 1990s. And usage is around 5-6% of the total concrete
requirement in the country.
As Dr Visvesvarayya was quoted saying, in the journal 'The
Master Builder' (Volume 1, No. 4, July-August '99): "The
Indian construction system has to get into the practice of using
the maximum out of the performance that the concrete mix can give.
While they start using the maximum advantage, then they will find
RMC the best."
Advantages of RMC
- Structure constructed with RMC is likely to function in a more
predictable manner because of known concrete strengths and uniformity
of concrete maintained.
- Assured quality of raw material.
- Assured and uniform quality of required grade of concrete, even
on repetition.
- Better finishing due to pumpable mix.
- Control on Water-Cement ratio is maintained.
- Due to the highly workable and cohesive mix, less chance of segregation/lumping
and consequent absence of honeycombs in the concrete.
- Lower labour and supervisory efforts.
- Better supervision of Concrete from the RMC supplier at the construction
site.
- Environment friendly.
- Multi-transportation of raw materials, for concrete, eliminated.
- Quicker construction through continuous mechanized operations.
- Eliminates need for ordering and storing Cement, Sand and other
aggregates at the site.
- Eliminates space constraint problems for storage.
- Timing for setting of concrete can be decided to suit site or
weather requirement.
- Wastage reduced due to bulk handling.
| Suppliers of RMC in Chennai |
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Coromandel Cements
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L & T
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Ramco
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| Suppliers of RMC Equipment
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Schwing Stetter
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Siemens
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Ocmer Truck Mixers
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Lieberr
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Hyundai
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Gujarat Apollo
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Ajax Fiori Engineering (ORU)
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| Varieties of RMC |
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Coloured Concrete
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Condensed Silica Fume Concentrate
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Enhanced Concrete
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Fibre reinforced Concrete
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Temperature controlled Concrete
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| Future of RMC in India
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Projected that the 5% usage will reach 45% by 2020.
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Insistence on the use of RMC by all major Construction companies
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Present forward integration will turn into more individual
business units.
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Disadvantages of RMC
- More expensive than
Site Mixed Concrete (SMC).
SMC is at least 20% cheaper.
- RMC attracts Sales Tax, as a product.
- Congestion and traffic snarls could play spoilsport.
| Problems faced by the
Industry |
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Lower level of awareness of the benefits of RMC
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Acceptance of the concept
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High Sales Tax
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Variable Cement prices
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Traffic restrictions on Transit Mixers
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Shortage of trained manpower
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| RMC - What they say ... |
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" As far as the superiority of technology is concerned,
no doubt , it (RMC) is one of the
best technologies, that should be adopted in all construcion
activities " - Professor B Bhaskara Rao of
Centre for Symbiosis of Technology Environment and Management.
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"It (RMC) is an ideal solution to many of the problems
we face. What is lacking is awareness.
We have to educate our engineers in the government departments.
" - Kantharaju of Karnataka State Building
Centre.
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Author : Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy
Picture : V Ganesan |
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1:45:57 PM 
