Concrete is one of the most used materials in the world of building materials after water. There are many reasons for this. Here are a few of these reasons: economic, low cost, components are available in excess of nature, durability is high, easy to process, resistant to fire, does not need much energy in production, environmentally friendly and most importantly allows different engineering work in the construction of aesthetic buildings. In its most primitive form, concrete was used when the Egyptian pyramids were built five thousand years ago, the Great Wall was built, and even during the Roman period, many buildings were built.

As it is used today, concrete production started in 1848 when the first cement factory was established in England. Then, in 1903, ready-mixed concrete was used in construction in Germany. The first concrete mixers were used in 1916.

Today, with the development of technology, new technologies have been developed in concrete construction. Chemical and mineral additives and fibers are used in today's concrete production and more durable concrete is produced.

In concrete production, cement, water, aggregate and necessary chemical and mineral additives are added in certain proportions and they are mixed homogeneously in concrete. The concrete, which has soft consistency when first made, hardens and gains durability as it dries. A quality concrete protects its chemical and physical integrity throughout its lifetime against environmental influences and loads. The indicator of quality in concrete is not primarily resistance to pressure, but resistance to loads and environmental influences during its economic life.

In this sense, the durability and quality of the concrete are strictly dependent on the following properties: material used (ie cement, aggregate, water, chemical and mineral admixtures), water and cement ratio, production methods, proper design, degree of compression, air content, maintenance (ie time, humidity and temperature).

Determination of raw material quality within the properties of concrete is done by various tests. These tests carried out in authorized laboratories take into consideration the legal regulations in force as well as the standards published by domestic and foreign organizations. Here are a few of these standards:

• TS EN 12350-1 Concrete - Fresh concrete tests - Part 1: Sampling
• TS EN 12350-2 ... Section 2: Slump test
• TS EN 12350-3 ... Section 3: Parental experiment
• TS EN 12350-4 ... Section 4: Degree of compressibility
• TS EN 12350-5 ... Section 5: Expansion table test
• TS EN 12350-6 ... Section 6: Density
• TS EN 12350-7 ... Chapter 7: Determination of air content - Pressure methods
• TS EN 12350-8 ... Section 8: Self-compacting concrete - Crumbling test
• TS EN 12350-9 ... Section 9: Self-compacting concrete - Sump-V funnel test
• TS EN 12350-10 ... Section 10: Self-compacting concrete - L box test
• TS EN 12350-11 ... Section 11: Self-compacting concrete - Decomposition test in sinking-screening
• TS EN 12350-12 ... Section 12: Self-compacting concrete - J-ring test