Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Submitted By:
Jatinderjit Singh
(07D04020)
Contents
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 1 2. Manufacture ....................................................................................................................................... 1 3. Hydration and Conversion .................................................................................................................. 2 4. Properties of fresh CAC concrete ........................................................................................................ 4 4.1 Setting ........................................................................................................................................... 4 4.2 Workability .................................................................................................................................... 5 4.3 Rate of reaction and heat evolution ............................................................................................. 5 4.4 Shrinkage....................................................................................................................................... 6 5. Properties and Applications ................................................................................................................ 6 5.1 Performance at high temperatures .............................................................................................. 6 5.2 Resistance to acid attack............................................................................................................... 7 5.3 Resistance to abrasion .................................................................................................................. 8 5.4 Thermal resistance ........................................................................................................................ 9 5.5 Other applications......................................................................................................................... 9 6. Structural collapses associated with CAC concrete .......................................................................... 10 7. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 10 References 11
1. Introduction
Calcium aluminate cements (CACs) are the most important type of non-Portland or special cements. Even so, the volume used each year is only about one thousandth of that of Portland cement. As they are considerably more expensive (four to five times), it is therefore not economic to use them as a simple substitute for Portland cement. They do not compete with the latter in any application where concrete made with Portland cement performs satisfactorily. However, there are applications in which the unique properties of calcium aluminate cements enable them to be used in severe environments where they are often in competition with non-cementitious materials.
CACs are produced with a wide range of alumina (Al2O3) contents from around 4080%. The higher alumina content grades are made from relatively pure raw materials (metallurgical alumina and lime), which make them very expensive. A few distinct advantages CAC concrete has over traditional Portland cement concrete: rapid strength gain upon setting enhanced resistance to abrasion, sulphate attack and alkalisilica reaction production of CAC results in lower CO2 emissions than Portland cement production
2. Manufacture
The most common method of manufacturing today is using the open-hearth furnace. is arranged with a long vertical stack into which the bauxite and limestone, or chalk are charged. It is fired with pulverised coal or oil with a hot-air blast. The furnace gases pass through the charge of the raw materials, driving off water and carbon dioxide. Melting occurs at the point where the charge drops from the vertical stack into the hearth of the furnace. Because complete melting usually takes place, raw materials in lump-form can be used. The cement is maintained in a liquid state in the hearth by heat radiated from the arched roof. The molten cement pours out continuously from a tap hole, and is run into moulds and cooled. The temperature reached is above 1450C. Electric furnaces are also used in some plants. These furnaces are tapped intermittently and so have a fairly low output. After cooling, the fused cement clinker resembles a dark, fine-grained compact rock such as basalt. The clinker ingots are crushed and then ground in ball mills. The cement is very hard to grind, 1
resulting in high power consumption and heavy wear on the grinding equipment. In contrast to Portland cements, where gypsum is added to regulate setting, no additions are made during grinding, the setting time being controlled primarily by the composition. Grades of higher aluminate content (60-80 per cent Al2O3) are usually made by sintering in rotary kilns. As alumina is used instead of bauxite, they contain practically no silica or iron oxide and are white in colour. These grades are predominantly used as binding agents in castable refractories, although they are also used in some building chemistry formulations.
On reaction with water the nature of the hydrates formed is dependent on the temperature of hydration, as shown in Fig. 3. At lower temperatures CAH10 is the first hydrate formed, at intermediate temperatures C2AH8 and AH3, and at higher temperatures C3AH6 and AH3. The stable phases are C3AH6 and AH3, and the other phases will inevitably convert to these at a rate dependent on temperature and moisture. C3AH6 has the highest density of the calcium aluminate hydrates, resulting in a higher porosity at a given degree of hydration. However, the conversion reaction also leads to the release of water, which is available for further reaction of remaining anhydrous material. For this reason the strength development curve of calcium aluminate cement concretes, in small sections at ambient temperatures, has the form shown in Fig. 2, with an initial rapid increase to a high early strength (corresponding to CAH10 and C2AH8) followed by a slow decline to a minimum (during the transformation to C3AH6 and AH3) before a further increase.
Fig. 4 Schematic strength development of calcium aluminate at a water cement ration of about 0.4
Control of the initial water-to-cement (w/c) ratio is very important to ensure that the minimum strength is sufficient for the application and design must always be on the basis of this long-term strength. Over 60 years of practical and laboratory experience has shown that good long-term durability requires a w/c ratio at or below 0.4, and that in the absence of superplasticizers this necessitates a cement content of more than 400 kg/m3.
Due to the rapid hydration reaction, there is a large release of heat during the early stages of hydration. The consequences of this release are that sections of more than a few tens of centimetres in thickness will attain temperature of up to 70C or more during curing. Thus the conversion reaction will occur almost instantaneously, leading to a continuously increasing development of strength. Properties of hydrates:
setting. At the other extreme CA2 reacts extremely slowly and CA6 is inert at ambient temperatures. The setting time of pure CA is typically about 18 hours, but the shorter setting time seen in calcium aluminate cements is due to the disproportionate effect of the small quantities of lime-rich C12A7 phase present. Because of this strong effect of C12A7, variations in its amount can cause the setting time to change by hours and excessive amounts can cause early stiffening. The amount of C12A7 is therefore tightly controlled during production to avoid this variability in setting time and other properties that may also be affected as a consequence.
4.2 Workability
In the absence of admixtures the intrinsic ease of placing CAC concretes is similar to that of Portland concretes at the same water-to-cement ratio. CAC concretes appear dryer, but they flow well under vibration. It is important to have a well-graded aggregate, particularly sufficient fine sand, to minimize the volume between the aggregates that the cement paste needs to fill. Classic plasticizers such as ligno-sulphonate and sodium citrate work reasonably well with CACs, but there may be a significant retarding effect. Superplasticizers based on naphthalene and melamine sulphonate are not very effective. Until recently, the best way of obtaining reasonable workability at the recommended low w/c ratios was to use high cement content, typically more than 400 kg/m3.
Fig. 6 - Schematic representation of the deposition of hydration products for the hydration of Portland and calcium aluminate cement
The other consequence of the rapid reaction is that the heat of hydration is evolved over a relatively short time. As the heat generation is rapid relative to the rate of heat dissipation, self-heating may be considerable in sections more than about 100 mm in size. It is quite usual to have maximum temperature in the range 5080C or even higher.
Fig. 7 - Temperature rise in beam 35x180cm of CAC concrete. Formwork was removed after 5 hrs then sprayed with water for 20 hours. Adapted from French Standard (1991)
4.4 Shrinkage
Intrinsically the shrinkage of calcium aluminate cement is roughly similar to that of Portland cement at the same degree of hydration. However, as hydration occurs much more rapidly this shrinkage occurs over much shorter period of time and can lead to problems with early age cracking
Fig. 8 - Comparision of shrinkage for CAC and OPC concrete measured in 40x40x160 prisms at 20C, 50% RH. Data from French Standard (1991)
In order to minimize these effects the same rules of concrete technology that are known for Portland cements apply, namely: prolonged moist curing good aggregate grading to minimize paste volume limitation of bay sizes (to around 3 m in unreinforced slabs) use of polymeric fibres in thin sections.
Exposure to moisture (atmospheric moisture is sufficient) leads to rehydration of the quicklime which is an expansive reaction and will disrupt the concrete. Thus any application where there is cycling between high temperatures and ambient temperatures is excluded. Furthermore, Portland cement is high in lime and silica, which form low melting point compounds at the service temperature of the refractory concretes.
Fig. 9 Portland cement and calcium aluminate cement concrete cylinders after 8 cycles of 6 hours at 500C, followed by 24 hours in humid conditions
Hydrated lime is not formed during the hydration of CAC. Thus it is not subject to the disruption caused by the rehydration of quicklime. The hydrates that are formed do dehydrate progressively as the temperature increases to about 300C and above. However, the compounds formed are themselves stable and at even higher temperatures (>1000C) begin to react with the refractory aggregates to form new stable phases.
Fig. 10 - Sewage pipes after 12 years in a field trial in South Africa. The Portland/siliceous aggregate section (a) has completely eroded through its 60 mm thickness in places. The CAC/siliceous aggregate section (b) shows maximum erosion of 1015 mm only at the water-line.
7. Conclusion
Due to conversion, which leads to an increase in porosity and subsequent decrease in strength, there has been a shift away from the usage of CAC. Several building collapses in the 1970s were initially (wrongly) attributed to CAC conversion, and many structural codes subsequently banned use of the material. Since this time, intensive research has provided a greater understanding of CAC chemistry and behaviour. A report by the Concrete Society in 1997 provided improved guidance for predicting long-term properties, and, as a result, the technical concrete market has seen resurgence in interest and use of this alternative cementitious binder. The few examples given here illustrate how specific environmental conditions can justify the use of a higher cost raw material to gain better life cycle cost and fulfil niches in which Portland cement does not perform satisfactorily. But CAC is way too expensive compared to Portland cement, with the cost related directly to the limited supply of bauxite, the main source of alumina in CAC production. Its cost is about 5-6 times more than Portland cement. Due to this CAC cannot be used as a primary binder, and cannot replace OPC for normal construction as freely. So it is currently suitable for specific conditions only.
10
References
[1] Karen L. Scrivener, Jean-Louis Cabiron, Roger Letourneux, High-performance concretes from calcium aluminate cements, Cement and Concrete Research 29 (1999) 12151223 [2] Karen L. Scrivener, in:John Newman, Ban Seng Choo, Advanced Concrete Technology- Constituent Materials, 2003 [3] K.L. Scrivener, Calcium aluminate cements, in: P.C. Hewlett (Ed.), LEAS Chemistry of Cement and Concrete, 4th ed., 1998 [4] Chris Parr, Calcium Aluminate Cements What Happens When Things Go Wrong, IRE annual conference, Rotham UK, September 2008 [5] Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_aluminate_cements [6] Technology of Calcium Aluminates - http://www.kerneos.com/-Technology-of-calciumaluminates-
11