Vee Bee Test – Its Principle, Apparatus, Procedure & Precautions

What is the Vee Bee Consistometer Test?

The Vee Bee test is performed to find out the workability of concrete. Workability depends on the flexibility, stability of concrete, and how much concrete is workable. The laboratory apparatus used to perform this test is called Vee Bee Consistometer. Vee Bee consistometer test is suitable for the workability of concrete.

Vee Bee Consistometer

The apparatus has a vibrating table, a sheet table cone(slump Mould) cylindrical container, standard iron rod, glass plate rider, funnel used for filling the concrete. The name Vee Bee is derived from the V. Bahmer of Sweden who developed this test.

Also Read: Complete guide on Slump Test

Principle of Vee Bee consistometer Test

The test provides an identification of flexibility and measures the compatibility of freshly mixed concrete. This test recognizes or measures the relative strength or effort required to change a mass of concrete from one definite shape to another (i.e from conical to cylindrical) by the vibration.

Vee Bee Consistometer Parts

Apparatus Required for Vee Bee consistometer test

1. A vibrator table that is rested on elastic supports and dimensions are 380X260X305 in mm.
2. A sheet metal cone whose both ends are open and the dimensions are top diameter 200mm, bottom diameter 100mm, and height 300mm.
3. A standard iron rod, Tamp whose diameter is 20 mm and length is 500 mm.
4. A metal pot.

Procedure for Vee Bee Consistometer test

1. Fill the sheet metal cone with the concrete in three layers as rodding done on each layer is the same as slump test.
2. Then the glass plate girder is brought in such a way it gets in contact with the top surface of the concrete.
3. Start the vibration table and the stopwatch too, so at the time when the concrete is subjected to vibration action. The concrete is permitted to spread out in the cylindrical cone.
4. The time should be noted down from the stopwatch until the concrete surface becomes horizontal after switching off the stopwatch and the vibrating table too.
5. The time is recorded in seconds which is taken by the concrete to change its shape from slump cone to cylindrical is known as Vee bee Test or Vee Bee degree.

Observation

The time required to change the shape of the concrete from cone to cylindrical in seconds is known as Vee Bee degree or vee bee test values.

Precautions Necessary in Vee Bee Test

1. The mould should be properly cleaned and free from the cleaned.
2. At the time of tamping on the layer of the concrete, it should be done carefully so that it is applied uniformly over the layer on the entire depth.
3. When the slump cone is lifted in such a way that the concrete should not be disturbed.

Also Read: Various Tests on Cement

Vee-Bee test compared with other workability tests

The test procedure of this test is quite similar to the producers of the freshly mixed concrete to its actual state. When the Vee-Bee test is compared with the other tests like the slump test and compaction factor test then it has additional benefits.

When the remolding is about to complete then it clearly determined that the difficulty arises in measuring the endpoint and the have some possibility of error.

The chance of error is more identified in the concrete mixes which have high workability. This mix has low Vee-Bee time. The concrete mixes of slump value greater than 125mm, then remodeling is very quick, so there is some difficulty to record the reading or time.

It means that the Vee-Bee test is suitable for concrete whose workability is high. The concrete having high workability has the slump value greater than 75mm. So in that condition, an operating device is used which can measure the time or record the reading.

Commonly, the Vee- Bee apparatus is used for concrete mixes that have low workability to record the reading or time. The slump test is most popular to measure the workability of the concrete.

Vee Bee Consistometer Test Video

Also Read: Revibration of Concrete