Concrete Rheometers

The present chapter aims to make an exhaustive presentation of concrete rheometers. After a definition of what can be called a rheometer based on a consensus among the technical committee members, concrete rheometers are presented following a classification that relies on the origin of the solicitation acting on the material and initiating the material flow. Four types of rheometers are listed: the free flow rheometers for which the flow is induced by gravity (i.e. monitored slump or spread flow), the rotational rheometers which are the most used ones and directly refers to conventional rheometry (i.e. concentric cylinders and plate-plate rheometers), the confined flow rheometers that can be useful for zero slump concretes (i.e. capillary extrusion and squeeze flow) and the static rheometers where shear is induced by the concrete’s own settlement and deformation (i.e. the plate test geometry). For each type of rheometer type, the physical principles are presented shortly referring to literature and Chap. 2 of the present book. Then, the different possible existing configurations are presented as well as available technical solutions. This rheometers review shows that there is a large range of devices able to capture and describe part or the entire rheological behavior of concrete mixes. However, each rheometer is dedicated to the measurement of specific parameters, is suitable for a range of concrete consistency, and has to be chosen in relation with the targeted parameters and measured concrete type.