Aggregate testing plays a vital role in the construction project by providing owners, designers, contractors, and suppliers with valuable information throughout a project’s progress. Aggregates are tested for strength, toughness, hardness, shape and water absorption. We provide a comprehensive range of testing on aggregate samples using BS, MS, BS EN, and ASTM standards.
It is crucial to determine the properties of aggregate to check their suitability for the specification, as well as part of quality control. Aggregates are one of the primary materials used in the construction industry. They include items such as:
- Concrete
- Mortars
- Bituminous mixtures
- Surface treatments for roads
- Airfields and other trafficked areas
- Railway ballast
Aggregates are also used in unbound and hydraulic bound mixtures in civil engineering works and road construction, which comprise our modern world as buildings, highways, tunnels and railways. They can be obtained from a variety of sources from natural sands and gravels to crushed rock and artificially produced materials.
BS EN aggregate testing services are available for each phase of your project’s construction, including:
GEOMETRICAL
- Grading (particle size distribution)
- Fines content
- Fines quality
- Shell content
- Angularity number
- Particle shape index
- Flakiness & elongation index
- Percentage of fractured particles
- Flat and/or elongated particles
- Sand equivalent test
- Methylene blue test
PHYSICAL
- Moisture content
- Los Angeles abrasion
- Crushing value
- Impact value
- 10% fine value
- Bulk density
- Particle density & water absorption
- Polished stone value (PSV)
- Fines content
DURABILITY
- Soundness
- Drying shrinkage
SPECIALIST
- Petrographic examination
- Alkali-silica reactivity by accelerated mortar bar method
CHEMICAL
- Chloride content
- Sulfate content
- Total Sulfur/Sulphur content
- Humus content (organic impurities)
- Loss of ignition
- Potential ASR (chemical method)
- Light weigh particles
- Clay lump & friable particles
