Antonio Incera, Andrés Reyes, and Minor Murillo
Antonio Incera, Dipl.-Ing., Universidad Latina de Costa Rica, Civil Engineering Department, Heredia, Costa Rica
Andrés Reyes,Professor and researcher Universidad Latina de Costa Rica, Civil Engineering Department, Heredia; Design Engineer, Productos de Concreto S.A, Engineering Department, Alajuela, Costa Rica, andres.reyes@pc.cr
Minor Murillo, Professor Universidad Latina de Costa Rica, Civil Engineering Department, Heredia; Department Head, Productos de Concreto S.A, Research and Development Department, Alajuela, Costa Rica minor.murillo@pc.cr
ABSTRACT
Given the current complementary requirements for structural masonry and the growth of the industry in Costa Rica, the need has arisen to implement production processes that allow to obtain
improvements in the resistance to the compression of concrete blocks without the necessity of incurring in large economic changes. As a result of this, the task of analyzing the effect of curing in concrete blocks with dry mixtures has been given by the experimental proposal of 13 methods of curing in the laboratory, by testing a batch of 5 blocks to 24 hours, 8 and 28 days. From the implemented systems, a comparison was made between pieces without any cure and others exposed to a method assigned as the “ideal”. The proposed systems were determined considering the weather, the manufacture site characteristics, economic feasibility, place and accessibility to the materials. Finally, a comparative table of the methods with greater projection and practicality in its application at industrial level, is made. With the results obtained, it is possible to determine the importance of cure at early ages in concrete blocks with dry mixtures, including the methods of ease application at industrial level, considering the percentage in strength increase due to the correct application in the curing times.
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