Pattern Imprinted Concrete Common MythsCracks / fracture Of Concrete 1.

0 Over View Over the years of installing Pattern imprinted concrete, cracking has always been a talked about subject. It is widely accepted that it cracks but why? What can we do about it? And is it totally preventable? justifications we quite often hear are comments like Our concrete dosnt crack we put fibers in our mixs, this gives it a lot more strength Or we cut expention joints in all our installations this prevents it from cracking Nither comments are correct, yet we do use fibers and cut expantion joints. There is a much bigger picture which we must understand, and the role these two examples play. Concrete(Un-reinforced Slab Design) The first thing we will look at is the type of concrete we use and why? This is known as Design Mix For our purpose this is laid out in our Specification, even this in its simplest form needs some explanation. The design Mix is laid down by the Concrete Society (2004) Imprinted Concrete Model Installation Clauses And Guidance Notes . This is designed for domestic driveways for a climate within the U.K. Most people understand concrete as being a single product, yet its constitutional parts are of the up most importance with regards strength and the likelyhood of cracking. How much cement do you need campaired to sand and aggrigates? How much water should I mix in? Have I Fogotten any thing? An earlier article Cracking Factors Outside Of Our Control explains what can cause concrete to crack, namely Physical, Chemical, Thermal And Structural. We will look into each of these in more detail, outlining How it affects our concrete and what we can do to prevent it, if anything at all.