Cement Industries, Raw Materials, Production Rate And Technology

Concrete floor is one of the most durable materials in the world. It can be made with waste products which help to reduce the consumption of valuable materials. It also can be made from fly ash, slag cement, and silica fume, all waste byproducts from steel mills, power plants and other manufacturing facilities.

Concrete can be looked at as a material made from sand, gravel and cement. According to Lambert (2002), “the first major concrete users were the Egyptians in around 2,500 BC and the Romans from around 300 BC”. Roman concrete like modern concrete was an artificial building material made up of aggregate, binding agent and water. Aggregate could be gravel, chunks of stone, chunks of rubble, broken bricks, etc. Binding agent could be mud , lime or gypsum, mixed with rubbles stone. The Roman added pozzolona, a special volcanic dust found in central Italy (Archserve, n.d). The addition of pozzolona made the bond with the aggregate far stronger than what was traditionally being used. This development drastically changed and shaped construction work in the life of Rome.

Cement is made from a mixture of limestone, sandstone, ash, chalk, iron, and clay. Researchers discovered the Roman concrete contained aluminum tobermorite, a rare mineral that adds extra strength. Cement was used by plebeians because they were the farmers, craftsmen, laborers, and soldiers of ancient Rome.

First, concrete durable. Concrete is something that will outlive other products up to three times over (“What Makes…”). In addition to durability, concrete is efficient. Concrete can be made with byproducts from power plants, and other aspects of manufacturing. Concrete is primarily made up limestone, the most abundant material on Earth. Above all of this concrete can be recycled. Concrete can be crushed and recycled into another structure or product, reducing the need to mine the limestone for production. Concrete also allows water to pass through which reduces the chance of flash flooding, erosion, and water table depletion as compared to other materials. This is a major check in the sustainability of concrete; the conservation of soil, landscape and ecosystems. Concrete is a very green option when it comes to building

The Development of Concrete

Concrete one of the most common and appropriate material in building a bridge. Concrete is strong in compression but weak in tension. However, concrete embedded with steel bars, known as reinforced concrete, serves as a solution for the steel carries all the tension. Less concrete will be used with reinforced concrete and the concrete that is used protects the steel from fire and corrosion.

Concrete was one of Ancient Rome's greatest inventions. Roman concrete was created by dropping rubble into sticky mortar made from limestone. The Romans perfected concrete by using different sizes of rubble depending on what it was to be used for. Concrete was cheap to create and mass produce.

Roman building using cement (Labate, 2016) dates from the third century BCE. Cement was used with crushed bricks and rock to produce concrete used for building. The cement was made from volcanic dust (pozzolana), lime (calcium oxide) or gypsum (calcium sulphate). This mixture reacts when mixed with water, binding the concrete into a permanent, strong, impermeable structure. The Roman engineers discovered that the use of cement in their mortar dramatically increased its strength. Special types of cement were discovered and used for under-water structures like harbors and bridge piers. Roman workmen perfected the skill of building with concrete, some of which, like the Parthenon, are still intact and beautiful to this day. During the first century CE, Rome had a “Concrete Revolution”, many concrete buildings being built as skill developed.

According to Yegul (Accessed 2015), Roman concrete or opus caementicium was developed around 45 BCE. Concrete was used by the Romans as a building material because it converts to a hard surface like a rock when mixed in the right combination of components. It takes three components to make a concrete substance. The three substances are an aggregate such as limestone, a binding agent such as clay or mud, and water.

The development of concrete was a major step forward for Romans. Its strength, flexibility, convenience and low cost - when compared to any other building material - made arch, vaults and domes much easier to build. Roman concrete was typically made from a mixture of lime mortar, water, sand and pozzolana, a fine, ochre-colored volcanic earth, which set well even

The target economic sectors of the proposed research are the sugar industry and the construction industry. The sugar industry will be directly affected, since the main goal of this research project is to develop a sugarcane bagasse ash-based product that can be used as an additive for concrete mixes. Due to the known properties and chemical composition of sugarcane bagasse, it is expected that this new product will be competitive with fly ash in terms of improving the properties of concrete mixes. The newly added economic value of bagasse ash may also make it economically advantageous to burning the entire stock of bagasse fiber for electricity production beyond the needs of the sugar mills. The local construction industry will be indirectly affected by the availability of an additive for concrete production with a lower cost and similar properties to fly ash. This new bagasse ash-based product is expected to reduce the construction costs of projects requiring large amounts of concrete (e.g., foundations, concrete bridges), thus, leading to a potential increase in the number of construction projects per year. The results of this research will have a significant impact on the economic development of US regions where the sugar industry is present, such as Florida, Texas, and Hawaii

Water is one of the most important elements in construction but people still ignore quality aspect of this element. The water is required for preparation of mortar, mixing of cement concrete and for curing work etc during construction work. The quality and quantity of water has much effect on the strength of mortar and cement concrete in construction work.

The function of cement is for isolating production zone and to provide support for the casing [11].Portland cement is made up of calcium oxide (CaO), silicon dioxide (SiO) and water (H2O) which the composition of calcium carbonate is around 75-80 wt% and 20-25 wt% of clay [7],[14].. Compressive strength of Portland cement is developed through hydration. Hydration is chemical reaction between water and cement compound. The rheology and early strength of cement is developed from reaction of aluminate compound at the beginning of hydration. Rate of hydration can be control by adding gypsum. It is for preventing the premature hardening of cement. Gypsum will react with aluminate and hydroxyl ion to form ettrigate. Ettrigate will prevent hydration process by forming needle shaped crystal on the aluminate and creating induction period [11].

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON STRENGTH AND WORKABILITY OF CEMENT MATERIALS USING MAGNESIUM SILICATE HYDRATE BINDER SYSTEM

In spite of the local production, cement importation has been high over the years because of the out-dated manufacturing technology, high-interest rates and exchange rate fluctuations. These factors have contributed to the manufacturing overhead both in terms of the high cost of raw materials and other inputs in the manufacturing and distribution process. Also, the easy access and low cost of acquiring an import license in comparison with difficulty in import license acquisition for manufacturing equipment spare parts also discouraged local manufacturing (Mojekwu, Idowu, & Sode, 2013). See table below for the import and local manufacturing trend over time