How to Test Quality of Cement at Construction Site?

How to Know Which is the Best Cement Brand in India

Quality test of cement at construction site is also called the cement field test and are essentially carried out to ascertain the quality of the cement received while construction process is going on. Although you may have procured cement from the best cementmanufacturers in India, it’s critical you do a field test to be sure of the quality of the cement as concrete is one of the most pivotal building construction materials that leads to a strong foundation.

Carrying out this field test on cement quality based on colour, touch and feel and other tests can be done in the following manner:

Cement Test at Construction Site

1.   Colour Test

If you ever get confused as to which is the best cement brand in India, just try out this simple cement colour test to get the answer. Quality of the best cement can be easily ascertained by its colour. If you procured the cement from a leading cement manufacturer in India like M P Birla Cement, their cement’s colour is always uniform grey with a light greenish shade.

2.   Lump Test

The best quality cement should be free of any hard lumps and should have a coarse but smooth texture. Cement forms lumps when it absorbs moisture from the atmosphere and such cement is unfit for construction.

3.   Adulteration Test

The cement has to be checked for adulteration too before taking it up for construction. The best quality cement should feel smooth on rubbing between fingers and if it feels coarse, it signals adulteration with sand.

4.   Temperature Test

If you insert a hand inside the cement bag, it should feel cold and not at all warm. This indicates your cement bag is from a leading cement manufacturer in India like MP Birla Cement.

5.   Float Test

Float test is yet another cement field test to know which is the best cement brand in India that offers quality cement. This is carried out by throwing small amount of cement in a bucket of water and see if they settle at the bottom or float above. If they float above for sometime before settling at the bottom, it’s the sign of a premium quality cement.

6.   Setting Test

Setting test is another solid test to know the cement quality at the construction site. Make a thick paste of cement with water on a glass plate and keep it under water for 24 hours. The best quality cement, from a leading cement manufacturer in India like MP Birla cement, wouldn’t crack and stay put after 24 hours.

7.   Strength Test

A block of cement 25 mm × 25 mm and 200 mm long is prepared and it is immersed for 7 days in water. It is then placed on supports 15cm apart and loaded with a weight of about 34 kg. if you’ve bought the cement from a reputed cement manufacturer in India like MP Birla Cement then the block should not show signs of failure.

8.   Packaging Date

It’s no brainer to figure out that the strength of cement reduces over time and thus it gets all the more important to always look for the packaging date on the cement bag. Generally, a bag of cement with less than 90 days of manufacturing date is fit to use.