UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



BULLETIN No. 230 1Mb 



Contribution from the Office of Public Roads 

 LOGAN WALLER PAGE, Director 



Washington, D. C. T July 14, 1915. 



OIL-MIXED PORTLAND CEMENT CONCRETE. 



By Logan Waller Page, Director, Office of Public Roads. 

 INTRODUCTION. 



The enormous growth of the American Portland cement industry, 

 with its production of 22,342,973 barrels of cement in 1903 and 

 92,949,102* barrels in 1913, is striking evidence of the widespread use 

 of this deservedly popular material of construction. Combined with 

 sand and stone or gravel in the correct proportions and mixed with 

 the proper amount of water, the resultant product — concrete — is a 

 structural material of perhaps more universal adaptation than any 

 other material now in use. Its application to foundations for heavy 

 machinery, to dams, walls, bridge piers, tunnels, subways, and build- 

 ing blocks is well known. When properly reinforced with steel, its 

 use is even more widely extended to the construction of bridges, vats, 

 sewers, water conduits, and numerous other classes of construction. 



The farmer has found concrete to be of material benefit to him in 

 building various farm structures which were formerly made of more 

 perishable materials. Thus, when reinforced with steel wire or rods, 

 fence posts may be made with an interminable life and at very low 

 cost. It is also exceedingly well adapted to the construction of water 

 tanks, cisterns, silos, pavements, floors, buildings, feeding troughs, etc. 

 Simplicity and ease of manufacture and of manipulation in construction 

 work, great strength and durability, and comparatively low cost are 

 some of the considerations which render its application so universal. 



In spite, however, of the many virtues possessed by concrete as a 

 material of construction, faults are apparent in its tendency to crack, 

 owing to external temperature changes, to the rise and subsequent fall 

 of internal temperature while it is hardening, and to the shrinkage 

 which accompanies the drying out of the mass. Then, too, as ordi- 

 narily made, concrete is more or less porous and absorbent of mois- 

 ture — characteristics of the material which are plainly evident in the 

 damp appearance of concrete houses after a period of wet weather, in 

 leaky basement walls and floors, and in reservoirs which persist in 

 losing water. 



1 Figures supplied by U. S. Geological Survey. 

 Note. — This bulletin is a revision of Bulletin 46, Office of Public Roads, and is of interest to those using 

 moisture-proof cement concrete. 

 58768°— Bull. 230—15 1 



