6. Admixtures in Concrete with Ryan Scott

Andrea and Griffin are joined by Ryan Scott, Regional Technical Services Manager for Chryso (formerly GCP), to talk all things admixtures in concrete. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey everybody. Just a quick note we had some technical difficulties with one of the mics in this episode. So for a few minutes, if you have a little bit of trouble hearing Ryan, just stick it out and it gets better at about three minutes in. So thank you and enjoy the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Welcome to Loaded, the Hahn Ready Mix podcast. This is Andrea Meyer here with Griffin Hahn and producer Lex, of course. Today's a very exciting day. We have a special guest live in the studio.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

We're welcoming Ryan Scott from Criso. That's the official name now, right? Yes. That is the official name. It went, you know, formerly GCP of Polytechnologies, formerly Grace Construction Products, formerly WR Grace.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Yes, yes. And now we're part of the St. Gobain Umbrella company. Yes. And Criso is now the main adventure company. So all the GCP Grace legacy stuff is now under the Criso umbrella.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Awesome. Awesome. Well, welcome. This was kind of opportunistic. You guys have some new people in the Iowa market, and you you came over from Indianapolis to train them today in our uh training room. And we thought, well, we're gonna grab Ryan. If any of you listened to the first episode, I made reference to Ryan being one of the smartest people in concrete and a huge reference or a huge you know boon to me in helping me uh solve issues.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

So I'll make a small correction on that. The question to Griffin actually was is there anyone nerdier than you in the concrete industry? And he named you. So I have some concerns about this podcast going way too nerdy with the two of you here. So I feel like it's my job to keep us all at a reasonable level.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Well, you know, uh funny you say that. So um so I came to the Adamic side about nine years ago, and I'd say it's probably seven or eight years ago we met. When we first came over here with Al, we were talking about the Bridge Project. And you know, the concrete is very technical per se. My job as a technical service manager is it's gonna sound bad, I'll pretty apologize, but just dumb it down so people understand it. Perfect, that's just what we're looking for. And and the perfect example is back on the bridge project. Um you know, it was SEC, very technical concrete, there was uh there was liquid hydrogen ball, it was just all this stuff that should not be in the same I remember that just happened, and um it was a learning church. And at one point it was air drained mass uh concrete with uh high level. And it had to be air and drained all the kind of stuff. The problem with concrete is once you get too wet, it's almost too liquid and like air walls too kind of burback. Yeah, it's very technical. And we got to talk about the difference in reality because we know how concrete moves, you know, like a dryer makes it doesn't remove electrical energy to it, and more uh higher slow makes it low. And we started a bad joke one day. Um explaining reality about the difference of parting in the water versus That's good, that's good. And again, it was it was just a joke when I said it, and I didn't mean for it to go any further than that. And um I'd be danged it it stopped. It caught on. It caught on, people understand it, and um yeah, it's just it's just one of those great moments in concrete history, I think.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Perfect. I think you're in the right place then. We found the right person for the right podcast.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Absolutely. You we still talk about burping the concrete occasionally. Oh, absolutely. It came up last week uh with Lex last week on something we were talking about.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Yeah, I mean it's just uh in in my world, you know, you can make careers on studying whatever aspect concrete you want. But if you can understand it like burping, barting, stuff like that, well, okay, everybody gets it. And for instance, anyone in this room could take and have this conversation with someone else, and it's gonna make sense.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Great.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

Awesome. All right, Ryan, you you mentioned your role as technical services manager, but dive in a little bit. Tell us what you do on a day-to-day basis for your customers like us.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Well, uh, a lot of times I get weird calls from these folks in Iowa about just weird stuff that happens in concrete. So it's funny because after 25 years, uh my wife jokes she has no idea what I do. And I think that some days. But as a tech guy, you know, I can get involved in on the cement side, like the additive side because of my background. On the concrete side, it's it's answering questions like whenever you call me about some weird stuff that's happening. It's doing presentations, it's a training, it's trying to limit liability in case we happen to goof up on someone. Um, it's just anything and everything concrete I I get involved in.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

That's which doesn't help explain it, but that's that's just my world.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Well, you spend a lot of time in labs doing trial batches and things like that too.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Lab testing, reading up on stuff. Um yeah, I mean that's that's really what it comes down to.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Nice. Nice. Sounds like a lot of fun to me. Andrea's going, she's cringing over there, going.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

I already checked out.

SPEAKER_02 5:17

Exactly. Okay, talk to us a little bit about Chris, so the company you're with, and now, you know, in the larger Saint Gobain, um, you gave us a little preview, but talk to us a little bit about, you know, the company and and the products you guys have.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Well, uh, yeah, so so brief history. Uh, you know, obviously here in the States, we had WR Grace been around for 160 years, give or take a little bit. Saint Gobain's been around for like 350. And going back, and I think the story is like uh the Palace of Versailles with Louis XIV or 16th or something, they were the company that made the glass for that palace.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

So they go back even further compared to WR Grace, which is cool. Uh Saint Gobain's really big all over the world, um, international by any means. Their slogan is, you know, they want to be the leader in uh like sustainable light duty construction and stuff like that. So they're really big to everything. Uh they've got their fingers in almost every type of company and whatnot. And here in the States, uh under the Creso side, we just we get to make concrete better per se by having just a slew of all kinds of products uh on the admix side, fiber side, the cement additive side. I mean, we're just we're just in it.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

That's great. Talk to me in a brief summary, how do you view the role of admixtures in concrete?

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Well, um, so another kind of joke is you know, years ago, people always thought it was admixtures of like uh a snake oil, that you know, it's some magic elixir to make concrete sing and dance. I look at it like concrete or like uh or uh admixtures like vitamins for concrete, for instance. So, like your basic ingredients, your water, your rock, sand, cement, you can do a fair amount with it, and that worked for hundreds of years, thousands of years. With admix, you can have the the high flowability of concrete without the segregation, without losing strength and whatnot. We've got uh obviously the the small bubbles we can put in to make it free salt resistant for exterior concrete. We've got other stuff like water pellets to help keep water out of it, which means it's going to last longer. So, I mean, there's just that's just kind of just a brief, I guess, summary of some of the different technologies.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Use it to manipulate basically the properties of the concrete. Absolutely. You know, and you mentioned snake oil. There certainly are a lot of dubious chemicals out there, right, that claim to solve every problem there is in concrete. I can't remember if it was you or Terry Harris uh from Cristo that told me this, but it's always a good idea when there's a new product out there too. If they if they claim that it does everything, it probably does nothing. And it's you know, when we want an admixture, we are specifically looking to manipulate one property of concrete. And if it does more than that, that's that's not a benefit, that's a side effect, right? Exactly. So uh I always think about that when I'm you know, somebody drops in and say that you know this will make your concrete cure cancer. It's like, well, you know, if that's all it does, then great, but I don't think that's what they're selling. So yeah, it's it's good, it's great to have you as a resource to basically parse through some of those things too, especially if there's like admixtures that are kind of outside of the scope of the stuff that you guys normally work on to separate the wheat from the chaff, basically. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. What are what about what are some new products that are out there that aren't snake oil that are um that have you excited? Some stuff that's new to the industry over the last few years or coming. What do you what do you see?

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Aaron Powell So it's kind of a twofold answer. I'll start with the normal everyday admix, for instance. And and like with us it's it's interesting because we've got the legacy Grace portfolio, then we've got the legacy Cresel portfolio. Aaron Powell There's some differences in in terms of how the products were acquired and whatnot. Like sometimes we would buy polymers, and sometimes like Creso, for instance, I actually make their own polymers. And you know, before this whole acquisition slash merger thing, I would have said that you know our products are better on the gray side. The Cresle products, I I think have a better uh like air package, for instance. So it won't mess with your air as as much as some of the legacy grace products. So aside from better uh control, I guess, which is cool, you've got other stuff. You've got the really the type S admixtures, your VMAs, your water repellents, stuff like that. That's what gets me excited because I think that's a market that no one really looks at, especially like DOTs or whatnot.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

And like, you know, water repellents, for instance. The concept's pretty simple. If you keep water out of hardened concrete, it's going to be more durable because you don't have freeze soil, you don't have ASR, you don't have sulfate issues. Yeah. It's just it's just a better investment long term.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Right. Okay, talk to us. If you're a driver or a batcher listening to this podcast, what's the most important thing for them to know? A few things maybe for them to know about admixtures and concrete. What lessons do you have for them?

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Uh so I kind of jokingly say that uh sometimes water producers are sensitive. And what I mean by that is like if a truck gets to a job site and hands down, almost every time uh the folks placing the concrete want wetter concrete per se, which means add water to it. Obviously, if you add water to it, you're just you're gonna spin the drum because everyone wants it like right then, right there. If you have to add water to it, do it transparently. And I always say that instead of just turning your drum full speed and just stopping it, reversing it real quick and just getting everything out, maybe mix half speed. Give it a good five minutes, and then afterwards slow the drum down, let it agitate for a minute or two, let some of those big purple uh bubbles kind of burp out and whatnot. And that'll make a more consistent product going on. But definitely the chemistry is sensitive to the energy, hence the the drum rotations of speed, the time, all this stuff. Slow down the drum and it'll be fine. Yeah. And just don't get crazy with water addition.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Yeah. Well, and and then the kind of the inverse when you first get loaded, making sure you get those initial revolutions to get the admixtures you know activated. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We've seen that before where we had uh we had a job, I think we were pouring like a thousand-yard mat footing somewhere, and we had a plant like right across the street and one that was 25 minutes away, feeding the same mix. And the air from the one 25 minutes away, and these were both dry batch plants, but the air 25 minutes away was fine. And the one across the street, we didn't have the air. Well, we weren't getting enough revolutions in the plant, right? So we weren't building, you know, that that chaos of the mixing action stabilizes those air bubbles, and it we weren't giving it time to do it. Um, so we had to to slow down, say, all right, we gotta get our revs before we can't just leave the yard as soon as we're loaded, and uh, and that fixed it. So it's important stuff too.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Oh, yeah. Everything uh you could kind of say that upfront stuff, whether it's the water dish, it's the number of turns or and the drum and whatnot, all the upfront stuff is more important versus later on stuff. Yeah. To to your point, you just you gotta mix it up and at least get it activated. Once it's activated, it pretty much does what it's supposed to do.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

Yeah. What here's a question we've tried to ask some of our guests. What's the craziest or most interesting thing you've seen out on job sites or at plants or what what what give us some good stories?

SPEAKER_00 12:22

So my my favorite um would be the 74 bridge where we met and whatnot. Yeah. And just because that was mass concrete, which means it had a lot of slag, it was high strength concrete, which okay. It was SCC, which is high flowable concrete, which mass concrete, high slag, and SEC don't belong in the same sentence. No. We had the nitrogen injection to cool it down to like 40 degrees or something like that, which was just it was a combination of everything you never thought you'd see on the same project.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

And then a two-hour barge ride.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we had to slow it down and put to sleep long enough to get the concrete on the barges and everything. And it was it it was interesting. Yeah. I I think that was my favorite project, even though it was just aggravating at the time. In hindsight, I I think you know, I learned a lot. You learned a lot. Oh, heck yeah. And um, it's just one of them awesome projects that is is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime event. The uh other stuff, there's a new type of concrete called like ultra performance concrete. And you could think of this like 20,000 psi. Flex strengths are about maybe 25,000, 3,000 psi. It's insane concrete. And like um, for instance, the the bridge mix was about 700 pounds of powder, uh, about a 0.3 water cement ratio, something like that. With UHPC, it's literally a ton of powder. Your water to powder ratio on the high side is like 0.17, so there's like no water in it. And the admix dose. Like on the bridge, we were doing maybe eight, 10 ounces per underweight. Yeah. We're doing 50 per underweight. Holy cow.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

What are they using that for?

SPEAKER_00 14:01

So the idea, like uh, it started off on the precast side, and think of a um like a bridge garder, for instance, and you're limited because of the the size of the the concrete has to be with all reinforcement, you're limited how far you can go. And let's just say with steel, you can go maybe, you know, let's just say 250 feet for a like a bridge garder. With concrete, you're like 100 feet, which is why if you see a concrete bridge, you've got all these supports every let's say 100 feet or so. With UHP C you could make concrete act like steel. And so you could get that same, say, 250-foot span using UHPC.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Or you could have the shorter span, but like maybe a third of the volume compared to conventional concrete.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Got it. See, here I was thinking about pickleball quartz. That's what's been on my mind.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Yeah, so so interesting, uh like in Illinois, they're actually doing overlays with UHPC.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

There's there's no air in this stuff, but because the water to powder ratio is under 0.2, you don't have the uh the bleed channels, which means essentially water can't get into it. Hence it's more durable.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Yeah, I've seen lots of like LinkedIn videos of bridge overlays and stuff with UHPC because it's impermanent. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

So the funny story behind that, so we got in the UHPC about five, six years ago up in the Dakotas. And at the time, it was uh the precaster was our customer for normal admix. Well, they got this project, and um the QC manager called and he's like, listen, Ryan, we want to use your project, but if we don't have anything, if you guys don't have anything, we have to use this this Cresell product. And so I dove into the world and over a few weeks I'd done about 25 different mixes with different polymers and whatnot, half of which were experimental, and I had no idea what they were. Ended up breaking my Hobart mixture, which is a feat by itself. At that time, I actually beat out the Cree cell product, and we got the GCP products on that project and whatnot. And well, what do you know, five or six years later, here we are. That's funny.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Kind of ironic. Yeah, world comes around. Well, we have not been lucky enough to have a UHPC project yet, but we're equally awaiting their opportunity. It will come.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

I I'd say the next five, ten years. Yeah. Yeah, it'll it'll be everyday stuff. Yeah. Well, maybe once a month stuff. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Well, give you guys a lot of credit. You kept me interested here for a lot longer than I thought, so good job.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

By interested, is that why you were snoring? I saw your eyes glitched. Yeah. Lex, I think we have a loaded question. This is from it's kind of both from Andrew and Chris, both put in the same one. The loaded question for today is explain the difference between dry batch and wet batch. Ah. And Ryan, feel free to jump in on this too, but I'll uh I'll kick it off. So a wet batch or what's sometimes called a central mix plant is with concrete's all mixed up in the plant up above in a drum and then dumped fully mixed into a ready mixed truck, or you could put it in a dump truck. That's one of the benefits. A dry batch or transit mix plant, all the materials are put in the truck and then the truck itself mixes it up. So when we were talking about that job earlier where you need to have the revolutions, that's critical on a dry batch or a transit mixed plant and not on a central mixed plant. We don't want to give it the extra revolutions on a central mixed plant. So knowing what type of plant you're loading at is critical to know how you're supposed to treat the concrete once it's in your truck. Um, some of the benefits of a central mixed plant, other than being able to load into a dump truck, include you don't have any dough balls. So you hear the contractors complain when there's dough balls out in the job and they're throwing it out of the concrete. Those don't happen on a central mix uh from a central mixed plant. Also, the concrete tends to set a little bit faster and more consistently because it has been more thoroughly mixed than what you can do in a truck. And there's a greater opportunity for slump control because the batcher is looking at the resistance of the concrete load to load in the drum and can keep things the same load to load while in a dry batch situation. It's the driver's responsibility to slump the truck to the proper slump. And driver A may think that they have a four-inch slump, and driver B may think they have a four-inch slump, and those could be different, right? Everybody looks at concrete a little bit different. So those are you know, slump consistency, no dough balls, more even set and a little bit quicker set. Those are some of the the big advantages. And central mixed plants can be faster, like in a paving situation. They could you can have another load in the process uh at the same time. So they can be significantly faster than dry batch plants. What I miss, Ryan, anything?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

I think you pretty much summed it up. I think the the easy summary is that it it takes out some of that variation you get in the dry batch plants.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

And that's probably, you know, everything you said, if if you can make concrete more consistent and cut out the variation, it's just a smoother production line.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Yeah. There are some benefits to a dry batch plant for certain types of mixes that work better out of there. For example, like augercress grouts. If you do it at a central mix plant, you got to make sure you rinse your drum out because they don't want any rock in that grout pump. So you got to rinse the drum out, it takes more time. If you do it on a dry batch plant, you're can be a little bit more certain that you're you don't have places where aggregates getting hung up. Same thing for exposed. We tend to do most of our pea gravel exposed mixes out of dry dry batch plants because you have less contamination from limestone possible there. So there are some benefits to dry batch plants as well.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

So when whenever you all get a call for like, say, one of those jobs, either uh pascowling or exposed aggregate, are there certain plants you try to pull from?

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Yes. Yeah. So if we have exposed, you know, for for us in the Quad Cities, for example, our only dry batch plant is Eldridge. So we push all that stuff to Eldridge. And, you know, we do exposed in, let's say, Geneseo, where we only have a wet batch plant. But if we had a dry batch plant around, that would make it easier there, you know, on them. So when we have the opportunity to use either or, we'll use a dry batch plant for those types of mixes. Yeah. Well, thanks for the question, guys. Um, some quick notes before we go. Importantly, Madison McLean is leading the NCAA bracket pool. So congratulations. I heard she's also leading the sports fans one in Bettendorf. So I can't imagine what that pays out, but hopefully that works out for her. But since there's all one seeds, we have eight different people that can win the pool depending on how things play out. So uh we've never had that before at this stage. So yeah. And and continue to root for the gators, everyone, because it's been way too stressful for me over the last few weeks.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

I just have a couple quick things regarding seatbelts. Uh, we recently had someone get a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt, which is really, really frustrating, and I I hate to hear that. And I just thought I would use this as a reminder to everyone that we care deeply about your safety and we want you to wear your seatbelt all the time. In addition, we heard some concerns or complaints, I guess, about the seatbelt warning that you might hear from the cameras while you're in uh in the yard. So we went through some processes to remove that warning while you're in the yard, but want to make sure everybody remembers to put your seatbelt on before you leave the yard.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

Yeah, and thank you to Michael Cole who came in to bring that issue up so we could get it addressed. So, you know, please, like we said before on the CM Seraps, so please don't hesitate. If there's things the cameras are doing that don't make sense, that don't help us be safer or better and they're obnoxious, let us know and maybe we can do something about it.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

All right, Ryan, thank you so much for being here. Thanks to everyone for listening to Loaded, the Han Ready Mix podcast. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening, and we look forward to talking to you again next week.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

Thank you.