I see cement trucks constantly turning the cement, I get that it may just be keeping it thoroughly mixed so no one part becomes more dried than the rest. Is that all that’s happening here?
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> Is that all that’s happening here?
Yep. The rotation does not stop the cement from curing. It starts to cure inside the truck, but the cure time is calculated to ensure that there is plenty of time to unload it at the job site and get it into place before it’s too hard to handle.
In some cases, the ingredients are not mixed before they go into the truck. They are mixed *in the truck* as the truck drives so that it’s ready to go (and already curing) when it gets to the job site. The truck has a tank of water onboard and the dry ingredients are mixed during the drive, and then the water added to begin the curing process as the truck arrives (or at an appropriate time before arrives so that it’s 100% ready to go as the truck pulls up).
There is no way to stop the curing process once the chemicals responsible are combined. Keeping it churned up may slow the process down, but only because you don’t get a settling of *all* the cement in one place with the aggregate settled on top or underneath (cement is the “glue”, aggregate is the “filler” that you’re gluing together, and “concrete” is the mixture of cement and aggregate). The curing process *can* be controlled by varying how much of which chemicals get added, so that you can have a shorter or longer cure time. Still, everything I can find online suggests that if you have concrete delivered it should be no more than 90 minutes from the time it’s mixed to when it’s poured, and under an hour is preferred.
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