This book is the fifth edition of the highly acclaimed and enormously read work by Professor Adam M. Neville. It has been translated into 12 languages, reprinted in several formats and has sold more than half a million copies over a period of nearly half a century.
Since its publication in 1963, Properties of Concrete has remained a source of inspiration, an acclaimed work of reference and a portfolio of reliable and comprehensive information for all those who, in some way or other, are associated with the lively and forgiving material that is concrete – a material that possesses amazing characteristics that have served humanity with might, humility and grace.
The book derives its strength and success from the fact that its author is not only a renowned international authority on concrete, but also seems to be deeply in love with the material and not ready to accept any degree of abuse of it. It is only such an affiliation, possessiveness and passion that could lead one to review, revisit and fine-tune an already excellent body of literature. Professor Neville's claim for this being the truly last edition may not remain the case.
On the face of it, in terms of numbers of chapters and pages, the fifth edition may give the impression of being the same as the fourth. However, a deeper look reveals fine-tuning within chapters, subsections and paragraphs of a high degree of importance that would immediately tempt replacement of the former edition.
The fifth edition retains the titles of all the 14 chapters of the fourth edition. The number of pages of the latest edition stands at 846 – only two more than the fourth edition – but 25 new references have been added spread over all chapters, making 1542 references in all. Being a new edition of a successful book and not a new one, the author has retained references from previous editions, which mostly contain the development of much of the basic knowledge for the benefit of new readers of the latest edition. All new references have been added at the end of the references of the previous edition for ease of recognition and familiarity. The full name index – a hallmark of previous editions – has been retained with further extension, making it possible to establish the contributions of individual researchers. An extensive subject index now contains over 6000 entries, providing excellent ease of reference. As previously, both SI and American (Imperial) units are used throughout. The standards, however, have been updated to 2010. The relevant standards, which in the previous edition were written under subject heads, have now been written in ascending order of the given number of the relevant standard without subject heads, which is probably the only change that may not be appreciated by most readers.
Almost all of the 14 chapters retain the previous subheadings, except for the additions of ‘Recycled concrete aggregate' in chapter 3, ‘Density of fresh concrete', ‘Ball penetration test and compactability test' and ‘Self-compacting (self-consolidating) concrete' in chapter 4, and ‘Thaumasite form of sulfate attack' and ‘Delayed ettringite formation' in chapter 10. These subheadings are very useful additions and should be welcomed by all involved in concrete testing and durability.
Under some subsections, paragraphs are either augmented or added to; for example, under ‘Transport of fluids in concrete', ‘Mechanisms of attack' and ‘Disruption by alkali-silica reaction' in chapter 10, under ‘Cube test' in chapter 12 and under ‘Influence of fly ash on properties of fresh concretes' and ‘Remarks about specialized concretes' in chapter 13. In several places in each chapter, sentences have been deleted, added to and/or rephrased, making the text more meaningful, apart from rephrasing the sentences for inclusion and/or replacement of the new standards updates and for inclusion of new references. The number of figures and tables is also the same as that of the fourth edition. To retain familiarity, the whole setup of the fifth edition is similar to previous editions.
It goes without saying that the words ‘concrete' and ‘Professor Neville' are now taken almost as synonyms. For a legendary piece of work from an established authority, reviews written by a mere disciple may not matter beyond custom, and I am sure that by the time this review is published thousands of copies will have already reached safe hands. An encyclopaedic tome ready to be embraced as a landmark should, therefore, be a very welcome addition to the library shelves of universities and related professionals and to the personal bookshelves of students studying concrete.
