concrete mender, Concrete Repair

All about Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender

Download your One Page Pitch and follow along.

At Roadware, we see lots of two-component polymer concrete repair products that claim to be just like Concrete Mender™. One even calls it self, “Quick Mender.”  They are all basically polyurea based products that are too thick to effectively penetrate concrete surfaces and are so reactive, they become too sticky and gooey to trowel in just a minute or two after mixing.  When you dig a little deeper, you will see a very distinct difference in genuine Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™.

  • What is Concrete Mender? ProprietaryPolyurethane Blend
  • Formulation: Classified
  • Manufacturing: South Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA
  • Origin: NATO program for rapid bomb damage repair on runways.
  • Function: To penetrate deep into concrete cracks, joints, and spalls creating a structural repair in 10 minutes.
  • Military Use: Classified
  • Civilian Use: Repair cracks, joints and spalls in commercial, industrial and civil applications.
  • Service Life: Indefinite
  • Cure Time: 10 Minutes at 70°F (21°C)
  • Distribution: Worldwide Distributor Network

Surface Tension:

Surface Tension is a measurement of the ability of a liquid to overcome its own internal friction and penetrate into a material like concrete. Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ has a surface tension One third of water. It will penetrate concrete cracks and fissures quicker and deeper than water. This low surface tension lets Concrete Mender™ penetrate normal bond lines and allows structural bonding with the aggregate in the concrete. See the electron microscope slide below.

 
 

Low surface tension has another little hidden benefit.  It allows Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ to be combined with more than two parts sand and still be workable and trowel-able.  Try that with a polyurea and you will have a gooey mess on your hands.

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender can be bucket mixed and applied like or mortar.
 
Roadware Microdoweling™ Technology:
 
Slab to slab micro-doweling action, provided by Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender, links concrete slabs together, locks them in place and allows for full-traffic, dynamic-load transfer, in 10 minutes. This micro-doweling action is more compatible with concrete and less re-active in harsh environments than even Poly-coated re-bar. Millions of micro-dowels penetrate, then bridge and bond, side by side, broken and jointed slabs. Hairline cracks, trench wide cracks, irregular cracks, cured control joints and variable depth spalls are candidates for this amazing technology.
 
Scanning electron microscope image of the interface between Concrete Mender™ and concrete.
 
In 10 minutes, at 70°F (21°C) , this micro-doweled bond has the same compressive and shear strength as poured and fully cured concrete. This makes bond-line failures a thing of the past. Parallel re-cracking, often experienced when epoxies cure out, are eliminated with Roadware’s micro-doweling technology.

Structural Polyurethane

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ is a polyurethane based material that restores structural integrity and aggregate interlock to distressed concrete by using low surface tension and low viscosity to penetrate concrete surfaces and cross -linking polymer chains to bond directly to the concrete-aggregate matrix.  This bonding action utilizes capillary forces to self-inject polymer chains into the surrounding concrete. This material should have a modulus of elasticity less than the surrounding concrete and should not become brittle over time. This material may be combined with manufactured sand to form a PCC compatible polymer concrete that can structurally repair concrete cracks  and spalls.

Advantages– Due to the very low surface tension of the material and low viscosity, complete saturation bonding of cracks can be easily achieved. Minimal prep to remove loose debris is all that is normally required.  This can be considered a structural repair if the material is allowed to gravity flow to the full depth of the crack. Manufactured sand or quartz may be introduced into the repair as necessary to prevent under slab ponding and martial waste. For repair greater than 0.125 inches, specified sand may be added at a ratio of two parts sand to one part mixed polyurethane as the crack is filled to extend the material and add strength. The sand also brings the thermal coefficient of expansion of the repair material closer in-line with surrounding concrete. Polyurethanes of this nature may be applied in a wide range to substreight temperatures making them useful in frozen and cold storage warehouse applications or cold weather application below -20F (-23C). Repairs are typically ready to accept traffic in approximately 10 minutes at 72F (22C).

 

Toughness:

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ mixed with sand gets about as hard as concrete, yet it’s modulus of elasticity is slightly less than concrete so it will move with the slab, not work against it.

 
 
Common uses for 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
 
Spalled control joints and cracks.
 
 
 
Spalls and holes.
 
 
Delamination Repair
Uneven slabs and thresholds.
 
 
Crack Injection using gravity:
 
Typical crack injection repair techniques involve epoxy, ports, pumps, and pressure to force thick epoxies into a crack.  Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ with its low surface tension can do same job in less time, less mess, and better performance.
 
 
 

Easy Floor Crack Injection using cartridges:

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender can be injected into a wide range cracks and delaminations using a simple cartridge and special Soft-tip injection mixers.  Successful full-depth repairs have been made in 24″ of concrete.

Concrete Mender crack injection into 24 inches of concrete.
Slowly injecting Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender into 24″ of concrete using 600ml cartridge and soft-tip injection mixers.

Diagram showing Concrete Mender Soft-tip mixer injection into a concrete slab.

The core sample shows full depth repair down 24 inches.
The core sample shows full depth repair down 24 inches.
Hairline cracks repaired using Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender and Easy Injection application.

Vertical Crack injection

For fast and easy vertical crack injection on walls and structures, we recommend the Gebbie Tech System 

THE GEBBIE TECH SYSTEM TRANSFORMS VERTICAL CONCRETE WALL REPAIR

  • Comprehensive testing by Opus International Consultants – repairs have consistently achieved results higher than the manufactured panel.
  • Full training in the system – a step by step training video and instructional booklet is included within each kit.
  • Save time and money! Conventional repair methods with epoxy have longer repair times, additional downtime and are more expensive.
  • Use a hand gun – no need for expensive pumps! The Gebbie Tech System uses the cost effective Roadware 10-Minute Concrete Mender™ hand gun to repair walls.
  • Complete penetration. Due to the composition of the Roadware 10-Minute Concrete Mender™ the resin travels easily from the injection point.
  • The approved vertical wall repair system. The Gebbie Tech System is listed in Roadware’s 10 Minute Mender Concrete Data Sheet as the approved method of vertical concrete wall repair.
  • Repairs cracks from a hairline through to quarter inch. Walls are repaired within 2 – 12 hours depending on the temperature, and the length of the cracks.

Polishable:

Polishing your floor to a mirror like finish? Repairs made with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ will not smear into the surrounding surface or gum-up diamond polishing pads.  You can even add natural sand to match the grain and color of the surrounding concrete.

 
Polished concrete repair with Concrete Mender™ Off-white.
 
The repair pictured above shows  Roadware Concrete Mender™ Off-white blended with plain concrete sand and a small amount of portland cement. This water-thin polyurethane is almost translucent. When we add nearly any type of dry sand or aggregate, we get a fast-curing polishable repair that blends beautifully with the surrounding concrete. Since this material is almost translucent, it resists shadowing effects due to over-banding when applied.
 
 
 

Lower Cost:

By adding two parts silica or quartz sand to a gallon of Concrete Mender™ you will yield about 2.2 gallons of repair material.

 

A gallon of polyurea or epoxy will yield a gallon of repair material.  That makes polyurea more expensive to use even at half the material cost! This does not even factor in the hidden costs of short repair life, damage to the surrounding concrete caused by pre-mature failure, or the cost of redoing the repairs when they fail.

4030 Grit manufactured quartz sand is the standard sand used with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender.
4030 Grit manufactured quartz sand is the standard sand used with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender.

Packaging:

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ hand packed with state-of-the-art packaging materials.  They have to be good. The very low viscosity and surface tension require it.

 
Bulk Application:
 
Due to the the extended working time formula, bulk mixing of Concrete Mender™ is easy.  Unlike polyureas that start to gel up instantly, Concrete Mender will remain workable and flowable for several minutes before curing begins.  Much less wasted product setting up in buckets.
 
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender can be easily mixed in a bucket with sand or used neat. No pumps of special equipment needed.
 
 
Pin-point Application:
 
With a Roadware needle tip mixer, you can apply Concrete Mender™ within-point accuracy delivering product to where it is needed most. Our needles come as small as 1.2mm in diameter.  If you can get a finger nail in the crack, we can get some Concrete Mender in there as well.
 
 
Use Roadware needle tip injection to repair hairline cracks in concrete floors.
 
 
 
 

Freezers:

Working in the cold?  We’re from Minnesota. We know first hand what it takes to work in freezing temperatures. Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ can be applied at temperatures below -30 F ( -34C).  That is really cold.  Exposed flesh will freeze in seconds.  That is almost too cold to go ice fishing. Most repair products would freeze solid before curing and quickly fail.  Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ generates its own heat. Curing will take several hours, but you will still get the same great performance.

Colors:
 
Roadware Concrete Mender™ comes in two standard colors.  Concrete Grey and natural off-white. Since a typical repair is made up of two parts sand to one part liquid, the color of the sand will determine the color of the finished repair.  By adding colored quartz sand to off-white Concrete Mender, you can make custom colors as needed.
 
Use Concrete Mender Off-white to make your own colored repair by adding different colored sand at the time of application.
Use Concrete Mender Off-white to make your own colored repair by adding different colored sand at the time of application.
 
 
Specialty Applications:
 
We also custom make Concrete Mender in Safety Yellow, Red, Blue, and Black.  Use Concrete Mender Yellow to create permanent safety lines and marks in difficult areas like cooler and freezer floors.
 
 
 
Safety:
 
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ is completely self-reacting and does not out-gas solvents or VOC’s when curing.  This material meets FSIS guidelines for work is federally inspected meat and poultry plants.
 

History:

For over twenty years, Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ has performed without fail in thousands of applications. Many times outliving the facility itself.

Supervalue warehouse cold storage floor
repairs with Concrete Mender™.
Concrete Mender repair in a cold storage warehouse after 15 years of heavy forklift traffic.

Utilizing technology developed to repair bomb damaged runways for NATO, Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ was reformulated and brought to commercial markets in the early 1990’s.  You can find us in nearly every industry that has concrete floors, decks, slabs or surfaces.

Links:
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™

Availability:

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender is made in the USA and is available from Roadware authorized distributors and dealers worldwide. Call 1-800-522-7623 or 1-651-457-6122 to find a dealer near you.

Specifications:

Concrete Mender™ Data Sheet