System and method of the invention involves use of a sensor-containing body which is mounted and/or rotatably disposed along the longitudinal rotational axis of a concrete mixer drum at the close end, the sensor-containing body being connected to a conduit for introducing water, chemical admixture, gas, and/or cleansing fluid through the closed end of the drum into the mixer drum. Numerous heretofore unrealized combinations of advantages and benefits are provided within the concrete industry by the invention.

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for preparing a concrete mixture. One of the methods includes controlling an ingredient metering system to measure and add a plurality of ingredients to a concrete mixture, measuring characteristics of at least one ingredient of the ingredients using a particle analyzer, determining an estimated rheometry measurement of for the concrete mixture, obtaining an actual rheometry measurement of the concrete mixture, and selectively controlling the ingredient metering system to add one or more additional ingredients to the concrete mixture based on a comparison of the estimated rheometry measurement with the actual rheometry measurement.

An apparatus and method for producing fluid concrete include a first mixer configured to mix at least water and cement so as to make a low fluidity concrete having consistency class ≤S2, a truck mixer that can be configured to mix the low fluidity concrete with further water so as to make a fluid concrete having consistency class ≥S2, and a water supply and at least a cement supply configured so that the apparatus or method can produce fluid concrete. The apparatus and method include a control and adjustment unit, connected to the water supply and at least to the cement supply, configured to selectively control and adjust the introduction of water and cement into the first mixer and the introduction of further water into the cement mixer.

A system for sensing the volume and/or viscosity of a slurry (e.g., like concrete) contained in a rotating container or drum, having a sensor and a signal processor. The sensor is configured to attach inside a rotating container or drum having a known geometry, sense angular positions of the sensor and also sense associated entry and exit points when the sensor enters and exits the slurry, including concrete, contained in the rotating container or drum, and provide signaling containing information about the angular positions and the associated entry and exit points. The signal processor receives the signaling, and determines corresponding signaling containing information about a volumetric amount, or a viscosity, or both, of the slurry in the rotating container or drum, based upon the signaling received.

A method for applying a curable building material, in particular in an additive method, including the steps of: providing at least two separate components of the building material; adding the at least two separate components into a mixing apparatus, in particular into a mixing chamber of the mixing apparatus, by a supply apparatus; mixing the at least two separate components in the mixing apparatus to obtain a curable building material in a set, cured state; supplying the set building material via a conveying line to a printing head, which is movable in at least one spatial direction, using a conveying apparatus; applying the set building material by the movable printing head.

A system for applying a building material including: a mixing device for mixing individual components of the building material into a curable building material; a pressure head which can be moved in at least one spatial direction and by means of which the workable building material can be applied; a delivery line, with which the curable building material can be conveyed from the mixing device to the pressure head; at least one delivery device for delivering the curable building material from the mixing device through the delivery line to the pressure head; a feed device, which is designed in such a manner that at least two separate components of the building material can be fed via at least two separate inlets into the mixing device, more particularly into a mixing chamber of the mixing device.

A computer-implemented method and a computer-based product and monitoring system for contactless assessment of rheological properties of a fluid cement-based product, the method performing a first analysis which obtains the rotation speed of the mixing blades (31) of a truck-mounted concrete mixer drum (30) and detects the variation of the speed constituting a first parameter, performing a second analysis which obtains at least a sequence of images of the fluid product contained within the mixer drum (30), identifies particles, shapes, groups of particles, contours, and/or slope of the fluid product within the collection of sequential images, detects variations of speed and displacement direction of the particles and shapes, constituting a second parameter, performing a third analysis that detects a correlation between each first and second parameters from which the system calculates at least one parameter of rheological properties of the fluid product.

Volume of a concrete mix load in a rotatable mixer drum is determined using an in-and-out sensor probe system wherein the probe submerges into and exits from the concrete during mixer drum rotation and provides data to a processor used in the system for calculating volume of the concrete mix load based on the data. To take into consideration any concavity, convexity, and/or cascading surface flow effects that can hinder accurate determination of the concrete load volume, the processor is configured to compare original batch volume and rheology of the concrete load monitored during drum rotation. The calibration of load volume involves a comparison between real-time data and historic data stored in processor-accessible memory, and further take into account the speed and tilt of the mixer drum (such as caused by roadway conditions), the concrete mix design, and other factors.

There is described a system for determining air content of fresh concrete received in a drum of a concrete mixer. The system generally has a high energy photon source mounted to the drum and emitting high energy photons towards a photon path rotating about a rotation axis as the drum rotates, the photon path is immersed in the fresh concrete during rotation, a photon detector mounted to the drum, the photon detector counting high energy photons received from the photon path; and generating a signal indicative of a number of counted events; a computing device determining an air content value of the fresh concrete based on the generated signal and on reference data; comparing the determined air content value to an air content threshold; and generating an alert based on the comparison to be displayed.

The invention provides compositions and methods directed to carbonation of a cement mix during mixing. The carbonation may be controlled by one or more feedback mechanisms to adjust carbon dioxide delivery based on one or more characteristics of the mix or other aspects of the mixing operation.