All about Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
At Roadware, we encounter many two-component polymer concrete repair products that claim to be similar to Concrete Mender™. One product even calls itself “Quick Mender.” However, these products are primarily polyurea-based and are often too thick to effectively penetrate concrete surfaces. Additionally, they are highly reactive, becoming sticky and gooey just one or two minutes after mixing, making them difficult to trowel. When you look closely, you will notice a significant difference between these alternatives and the genuine Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™.
- What is Concrete Mender? Proprietary Polyurethane 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 measures a liquid’s ability to overcome its internal friction and penetrate materials such as concrete. Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ has a surface tension that is one-third that of water, allowing it to enter concrete cracks and fissures more quickly and deeply than water. This low surface tension enables Concrete Mender™ to infiltrate standard bond lines and promotes structural bonding with the concrete’s aggregate.
Low surface tension offers another hidden benefit: it enables Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ to be mixed with more than two parts sand while still remaining workable and easy to trowel. In contrast, if you try that with a polyurea, you’ll end up with a gooey mess.
Roadware Microdoweling™ Technology
The slab-to-slab micro-doweling action provided by Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender effectively links concrete slabs together, securing them in place while allowing for full traffic and dynamic load transfer within just 10 minutes. This micro-doweling action is more compatible with concrete and less reactive in harsh environments compared to poly-coated rebar. Millions of micro-dowels penetrate the slabs, bridging and bonding broken and jointed surfaces side by side. This remarkable technology is suitable for addressing hairline cracks, wide trench cracks, irregular cracks, cured control joints, and variable depth spalls.
In just 10 minutes at 70°F (21°C), this micro-doweled bond achieves compressive and shear strengths equivalent to those of poured and fully cured concrete. As a result, bond-line failures are now a thing of the past. Furthermore, parallel re-cracking, which is often seen when epoxies cure, is eliminated thanks to Roadware’s micro-doweling technology.
Structural Polyurethane
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ is a polyurethane-based material designed to restore the structural integrity and aggregate interlock of distressed concrete. Its low surface tension and low viscosity allow it to penetrate concrete surfaces effectively. The product utilizes cross-linking polymer chains to bond directly to the concrete-aggregate matrix. This bonding action harnesses capillary forces to self-inject polymer chains into the surrounding concrete.
The material is engineered to have a modulus of elasticity that is lower than that of the surrounding concrete, ensuring it does not become brittle over time. Additionally, it can be mixed with manufactured sand to create a polymer concrete that is compatible with Portland Cement Concrete (PCC), enabling effective structural repairs for concrete cracks and spalls.
Advantages: One of the key benefits of this material is its very low surface tension and viscosity, which allows for effective saturation bonding of cracks without significant effort. This characteristic enables the repair process to be straightforward, requiring only minimal preparation, such as removing loose debris from the area before application.
Once applied, if the material is allowed to flow freely to the full depth of the crack, the repair can be classified as structural. To enhance the durability of the repair and prevent issues such as water pooling underneath the slab, it may be advantageous to incorporate manufactured sand or quartz into the mixture. This addition helps to optimize material usage and improve overall stability.
For cracks measuring greater than 0.125 inches in depth, it is recommended to mix the polyurethane with sand at a ratio of two parts sand to one part polyurethane. This not only extends the volume of the repair material but also significantly increases its strength. The inclusion of sand provides the added benefit of aligning the thermal coefficient of expansion of the repair material more closely with that of the surrounding concrete, thereby minimizing the risk of future cracking due to temperature fluctuations.
Another notable advantage of these polyurethanes is their versatility in application temperatures. They can be effectively applied in a wide range of substrate temperatures, making them particularly useful for repairs in freezing conditions and cold storage environments. These materials can even be applied in extremely low temperatures, as low as -30°F (-34°C), ensuring that repairs can be conducted year-round, regardless of weather conditions.
One of the key advantages of this repair material is its fast curing time. Generally, repairs will be fully ready for traffic in about 10 minutes when applied at a temperature of 72°F (22°C). This quick turnaround significantly reduces downtime and facilitates efficient maintenance of surfaces in both commercial and industrial environments.
Toughness
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ mixed with sand gets about as hard as concrete, yet its 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™ uses low surface tension to do the same job in less time, with less mess, and better performance.
Easy Floor Crack Injection Using Cartridges
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender can be injected into a wide range of cracks and delaminations using a simple cartridge and special Soft-tip injection mixers. Successful full-depth repairs have been made in 24″ of concrete.
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 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 temperature and the length of the cracks.
Polishable Repairs
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.
Roadware Concrete Mender™ Off-white can be blended with plain concrete sand and a small amount of Portland cement. This water-thin polyurethane is almost translucent. When nearly any type of dry sand or aggregate is added, it creates a fast-curing, polishable repair that blends with the surrounding concrete. Because the material is almost translucent, it resists shadowing effects from 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.
Learn more about using sand with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender.
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 factor in the hidden costs of short repair life, damage to the surrounding concrete caused by premature failure, or the cost of redoing repairs when they fail.
Packaging
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ is 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
Concrete Mender™ features an extended working time formula that simplifies bulk mixing. Unlike polyureas that gel quickly, Concrete Mender stays workable and flowable for several minutes, allowing for greater flexibility. This means less product waste, allowing resources to be maximized while achieving effective repairs.
Pin-Point Application
With a Roadware needle-tip mixer, you can apply Concrete Mender™ with pinpoint accuracy, delivering product where it is needed most. Our needles come as small as 1.2mm in diameter. If you can get a fingernail in the crack, we can get some Concrete Mender in there as well.
Freezers and Cold-Temperature Repairs
Working in the cold? We’re from Minnesota. We know firsthand what it takes to work in freezing temperatures. Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ can be applied at temperatures below -30°F (-34°C). 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 sand color 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.
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 VOCs when curing. This material meets FSIS guidelines for work in 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.
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 1990s. You can find us in nearly every industry that has concrete floors, decks, slabs, or surfaces.
Product Information
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™: View product information
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.
