Earth-moist concretes are used to a large extent in the concrete goods and precast industry. The market situation today places very high quality demands on products made from earth-moist concrete. As a rule, these products must exhibit not only sufficient strength and density, but also high resistance to freezing and thawing, high resistance to abrasion, exact dimensional accuracy and a flawless appearance. Traditionally, earth-moist concretes are formed from a three-component system comprising cement, aggregate and water, whereby neither the design nor the optimisation of earth-moist concrete mixtures has been uniformly regulated to date. In recent years the use of high-performance additives and various admixtures has been gaining in importance. ‘Modern’ earth-moist concrete is thus gradually becoming a five-component system, allowing new possibilities for varying the design of the recipe. Although this basically makes it easier to establish the workability (compactibility) and hardened concrete properties, the mastery of such a system presents a challenge both in respect of optimising concrete technology and also from an economic point of view. The paper provides an overview of the state of the art and science in the field of earth-moist concretes. The essential basic principles in terms of concrete technology will be highlighted and several optimisa - tion strategies will be shown. In addition an outlook on the further development of this technology will be ventured.
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