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- Cement (2) (entfernen)
As soon as cement is mixed with water, the hydration reaction starts to set of. The progression of the hydration process is governed by the amount and the availability of water and its possibility to access the unhydrated cement grain surfaces. For a total hydration cement theoretically requires water amounting approximately 0.38 of its own mass. Nevertheless, due to the cement’s highly hygroscopic nature, already the moisture in the ambient air can cause first hydration reactions to set in upon the cement grain surfaces. Such pre-hydration processes have an effect on the cement's properties. Dpending on the specific conditions during the storage the significance of the impact on certain properties can vary.
If cement is consumed soon after production and is transported only short distances in a silo wagon to its final destination for immediate use without further stock transfer, the effects are rather negligible. However, if cement is delivered in bags, transported over long distances, shifted serval times and stored for longer time periods until it is finally consumend, these effects can be quite severe. Due to the actual logistical situation with comparably few cement plants, large delivery distances and partially less developed infrastructures, the latter scenario pictures the situation for the most cases in Africa quite well.
In order to verify the relevance of the pre-hydation for practical application, a series of tests was conducted at the German Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM). The influence of the cement storage on gresh and hardened concrete properties was investigated for different concrete and mortar types. The investigations show that the impact of the storage conditions is more pronounced for specialized concretes with high sophisticated optimized mixture compositions containing admixtures. Nevertheless, the effects also occur for ordinary concrete and should not be ignored.
Polysaccharides provide high potential to be used as rheology modifying admixtures in mineral binder systems for the construction industry such as concrete or mortar. Since superplasticizers have become state of technology, today, concrete is more and more adjusted to flowable consistencies. This often goes along with the risk of segregation, which can be effectively avoided by adding stabilising agents supplementary to superplasticizers. Stabilising agents are typically based on polysaccharides such as cellulose, sphingan gum, or starch. Starch clearly distinguishes in its effect on rheology from other polysaccharides, mainly due to the strong influence of amylopectin on the dispersion and stabilisation of particles. Based on rheometric investigations on cementitious and limestone based dispersions with different volumetric water to solid ratios, the mode of operation of modified potato starch is explained in comparison to a sphingan gum. It is shown that the stabilising effect of starch in a coarsely dispersed system is mainly depending upon the water to solid ratio and that above a certain particle volume threshold starch mainly affects the dynamic yield stress of dispersions, while plastic viscosity is affected only to a minor degree. Sphingans operate more independent of the particle volume in a coarsely dispersed system and show significantly higher effect on the plastic viscosity than on the yield stress. In systems incorporating superplasticizers, influences of both stabilising agents on yield stress retreat into the background, while both observed polysaccharides maintain their effect on the plastic viscosity.