Gilson Insights

More than a century ago, Duff Abrams established a simple ratio to define the strength, quality, and workability of concrete mixtures. The water to cementitious material (w/cm) ratio is universally used in mixture design and batching, but accurate determinations for on-site acceptance of fresh concrete have remained elusive until now. The Phoenix method provides accurate and repeatable w/cm measurements in the lab or field in minutes.

Riffle splitters were a popular tool in sampling and dividing, but had limitations, such as a narrow particle size range, uneven particle distribution, and poorly divided samples. To solve these issues, Gilson designed the Universal Splitter models with adjustable chute widths, a closed hopper to evenly distribute samples, and other features to produce more accurate and efficient sampling and dividing results.

Gilson’s AutoSiever for particle sizing is the ideal solution for hard-to-separate fine powders. This blog post explores the cleaning, care, and storage of the GA-6 AutoSiever, acrylic test sieves, and latex components, along with some how-to tips for optimizing sonic sieving performance.

If surface moisture evaporates from freshly poured concrete too quickly, the concrete surface dries out and plastic shrinkage cracking can occur. Learn how to monitor and mitigate plastic shrinkage for optimum concrete results.

Determining relative density, or specific gravity, allows accurate conversion of volumes to gravimetric weights for proportioning materials. Learn more about relative density/specific gravity test methods and the equipment used to perform this laboratory test.

For this blog article, we will look at the use of brass for weaving the mesh of laboratory test sieves and how stainless steel has become a more efficient and cost-effective mesh material.

The term construction materials testing sounds like a catch-all term for analyzing everything from nails to doorknobs. However, for the civil engineering industry, it has come to mean the characterization of a handful of things by using specific test methods in a construction materials testing laboratory: concrete, aggregates, asphalt, and soils. This blog will take a high-altitude view of what construction materials are, the most important properties to test for, and the right equipment to get the job done.

While Part 1 of this blog series discussed nondestructive concrete testing methods and equipment, Part 2 will cover equipment used to detect location, orientation, and corrosion of reinforcing steel, the effects of moisture, and how to document concrete quality.

The dynamic cone penetrometer (DCP) is an efficient tool used to perform soil strength assessments of fine-grained soils, pavement base courses, and more. Learn about the advantages of this tool compared to other penetration testing methods and how to perform penetration tests using the dynamic cone penetrometer.

Concrete slump testing is the most common test performed on fresh concrete for any application. It is a significant factor when evaluating a concrete batch's compliance with the approved mix design and an eleventh-hour check of its suitability for placement. For this post, we focus on the slump test, how to perform it properly, and the best testing equipment to use.