Estimate the quantities of different ingredients | Concrete Mix

Concrete is a man made material. In the most simplest form it is the mixture of coarse aggregate, fine aggregate, water and cement. It is very much possible for us to tweak different properties of concrete mix, by changing the quantities/proportion of different materials used to get the desired quality. For this we design the concrete mix by following all the guidelines given in the IS : 10262 and IS : 456.

The complete step by step procedure of concrete mix design is given in this post.

This post will help you to estimate the quantities of different ingredients of concrete using the concrete mix ratios. Once you get the concrete mix ratio you have to calculate the total volume of concrete for different structural elements (beam, column, slab, staircase etc. ).

I will explain the complete procedure by taking a simple example of a rectangular slab section of the dimension (5 m x 5m x 0.125 m ) and lets assume the grade of concrete to be M50 and the mix ratio comes to be 1 : 1.82 :2.50.

Step by step procedure to calculate the quantities of different ingredients of concrete

1. Calculate the total volume of concrete required.

Volume of concrete	Volume of the rectangular slab section
	L * B * H = 5 * 5 * 0.125
	= 3.125 cum = 3.5 cum (approx)

2. Calculate the total parts of concrete

Total parts of concrete	= 1 + 1.82 + 2.50
	= 5.32 Parts

3**. Calculate the amount of cement**

Quantity of cement	cement parts/total parts of concrete * concrete volume * density of cement
	\frac{1}{5}.32 * 3.5 * 1440
	= 947.36 kg

4. Calculate the quantity of fine aggregate

Quantity of Fine aggregate	FA parts/total parts of concrete * concrete volume * density of FA
	1.\frac{82}{5}.32 * 3.5 * 1660
	= 1987.63 kg

5. Calculate the quantity of coarse aggregate

Quantity of Coarse aggregate	CA parts/total parts of concrete * concrete volume * density of CA
	2.\frac{50}{5}.32 * 3.5 * 1800
	= 2960.52 kg

6. Calculate the water quantity

Water quantity is computed using the water cement ratio. As per the given assumed problem the water cement ratio is 0.39.

Volume of water	w/c ratio * cement volume
	0.39 * cement parts/total parts of concrete * concrete volume * unit weight of water
	0.39 * \frac{1}{5}.52 * 3.5 * 1000
	= 247.28 litres.

This way you can calculate the amount of each ingredients required for a particular volume of concrete.

You can go through this post to learn how to calculate the concrete mix ratio using the concrete mix design calculator application in just 2 minutes.