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The large scale application of self-cooling concrete pavers is a future-oriented approach to reduce the urban heat island effect in inner-city areas. Making use of evaporation enthalpy, these new pavements counterbalance the absorption of solar radiation and the subsequent transfer of heat to the surrounding environment. The concrete pavers consist of a permeable top-layer and a storage layer. As the different requirements of these layers demand different concrete mixtures they are developed and optimised for their respective functions. This paper presents some results of the concrete mixture design and Solutions that combine a sufficient compressive strength as well as good water transportation properties for the face concrete layer.
Worldwide an increasing migration from rural to urban regions can be observed. Hence cities are growing and as a result the building density and the land sealing rise. Concrete as commonly used building material in urban structures provides a high heat storage capacity. Therefore the microclimate in cities has become warmer than in the surrounding areas. This phenomenon is called Urban Heat Island Effect. To mitigate this situation a large scale application of self-cooling concrete pavers is an approach to reduce the urban heat island effect. Making use of evaporation enthalpy, this new type of pavements counterbalances the absorption of solar radiation and the subsequent transfer of heat to the surrounding environment. The typical double-layer structure of concrete paving stones can be maintained. The mass concrete acts as a water storage layer and is covered by a permeable face concrete. As the different requirements of these layers demand different concrete mixtures, they are developed and optimised for their respective functions. This paper presents some suitable no-slump concrete mixtures that combine a sufficient compressive strength as well as good water transportation properties for the above mentioned approach.
Interactions between waste paper sludge ashes and superplasticizers based on polycarboxylates
(2016)
In many industrial nations, about two third of the paper demand is covered by recovered paper. A major process step within the treatment of waste paper is the de-inking. It is a floating process yielding paper sludge as a waste product. About 50 % of this residue is used as a fuel. In several cases it is burnt at temperature of about 850 °C and thereafter the accrued ashes are collected in the flue gas filter. During the combustion, kaolinite and calcium oxide generate gehlenite and larnite. Calcite is the main component of waste paper sludge ash (PA).The chemical and mineralogical composition of PA suggests using it as a supplementary cementitious material.
In modern construction materials technology, workability aspects gain importance, since for most modern materials the rheology and compaction ability are relevant for the operation at a hardened state. It was observed that PA significantly increases the water demand of powder systems, which can cause serious problems during the casting of mineral binder systems containing PA. It is therefore obvious that binder systems containing PA might demand for the use of superplasticizers. Superplasticizers are polymers with anionic backbone that cause electrostatic and steric repulsion effects upon adsorption on surfaces of particles and hydration phases.
In this paper interactions between superplasticizers and waste paper sludge ashes are discussed and analysed. Based on observations of changes in the zeta potential and the dispersion of the particle system, the influence of the charge density of superplasticizers is observed and time dependent effects are demonstrated.
The construction sector has traditionally been a source of employment in African regions. However, due to policy changes, cut backs in public investments as well as a fall in the number of employments in the private sector have been observed in many countries. Furthermore a shift from registered companies to informal contractors could be noticed. Many contractors offer services they do not provide permanently or for which the required equipment has to be borrowed. A study that was published in 2000 about the situation in Tanzania pointed out that only ca. 15% of the enterprises that offer concrete works own a concrete mixer. The building practice with concrete varies widely over the African continent. Whereas the level of technology and the infrastructure for cement and concrete in South Africa is elaborate, in East Africa and particularly those that were heavily suffering from civil war during the nineties of the last century, the availability of cement and concrete is poor and these materials are far from being everyday building practice. Most of the population relies on indigenous forms of construction requiring wood obtained from felling of forest trees and ultimately contributing to de-forestation. Informal settlements in South-Africa and Kenya are literal evidence where originally green natural vegetation has been turned into artificial desert-like landscapes.
Globally, cement and concrete experts are at the cutting-edge to sustainable, green, healthy but nonetheless high-performance concrete. Today concrete is not yet well established in Africa, which offers the unique opportunity to build up a cement and concrete market based on the highest available state of technology. As this industry needs high level expertise, a central issue in implementation of skilled technology is crosslinking research institutions and laboratories. It should not be neglected that concrete is a product with low transport ranges. This means that an improved concrete market mainly supports the local economy without exceeding financial drains to the international market. Thus it fosters the fight against poverty, which is an urgent need in most African countries. The project aims to cross-link experts with industry and policy making bodies, aiming to establish sustainable cement and concrete construction in Africa.
In the last years flowable concrete has become increasingly important in applications such as, for systems with highly reinforced concrete with a complicated formwork, or sprayed concrete and 3D-printing of concrete. For all these applications it is necessary to have tailored rheological properties. Rheology can be described by values of yield stress and plastic viscosity, which can be determined for example by evaluation of rheometer measurements. But for different materials various rheometers with different geometries and stirrers are being used. To see the effects from paste in concrete, it is necessary to investigate mixes of paste, mortar and concrete, stepwise. But currently there exists no device, which is calibrated for these different systems at once. Due to this fact, conventional tests such as V-funnel efflux-time and flow diameter were determined, as well as rheometer data in different cell sizes and geometries.
In this study the assessment of rheological effects in the binder on the rheology of mortar and concrete was investigated by using combination of two rheometers.
The paper showed that the STA behave completely different in pastes with LSF and cement, respectively, as well as with or without PCE. While STA can affect plastic viscosity and yield stress in LSF and cement pastes, the addition of PCE causes that the STA have mainly an impact on plastic viscosity, except DGUM and ST-low. The performance of STA in LSF and cementitious systems can vary greatly due to different ionic strengths of the liquid phase. The charges due to modification of the starches have an intense influence on the rheological properties in pastes. The combined use of PCE and STA can lead to a significant increase of the plastic viscosity without a strong effect to the yield stress.
For the evaluation of the effectivity of STA the ionic strength of the liquid phase and the solid volume fraction of the binder have to be taken into account. Further influences can arise from grain size and aggregate content as well as the temperature, which were not discussed in this paper.
The cement and concrete market in East, Central and Southern Africa is highly fragmented. The concrete industry in this area consists of multiple parties, including producers and suppliers of construction materials, formal and informal contractors, engineers and architects, unions of trades persons and workmen, governmental bodies and formal institutions of research and education. All these institutions mostly do not interact adequately, which makes building with cementitious materials susceptible to damage and failures. Completely opposed to the situation in Europe or North America, cement in Africa is often unaffordable, while manpower is cheap, which results in a questionable economisation of cement. Typically, there is not sufficient awareness of methods to sensibly reducing the cement content in concrete or replace Ordinary Portland Cement by adequate alternative materials. Research activities in this field of technology are often missing completely. Only few countries in the area, such as South Africa, are exempted from these issues.
This paper presents the SPIN project, which is a joint project of a consortium of 8 African and 3 European partners within the ACP Science and Technology Programme. The project is funded by the EC and ACP Secretariat is the project body. The main objective of the current project is to strengthen the cement and concrete industry in the East and Central African regions. The project shall generate reasonable solution strategies to implement clean, safe and sustainable cement and concrete technology on the African continent, including general and specific guidelines for sensible application. Furthermore it shall be the kick-off for future projects, research activities and the world-wide expansion of a European-African network.
The paper addresses special problems the cement and concrete market in Eastern, Central and Southern African countries has to face. Several options are presented in detail, which shall help overcoming the current situation. Customized solutions for the African market include rational methods for reducing the amount of cement used and the replacement of Ordinary Portland Cement with cheaper alternatives. The use of recycled concrete through a new and economically effective method, as well as the opportunity of using locally available resources is also discussed.
The SPIN project
(2011)
Globally, cement and concrete experts are at the cutting-edge to sustainable, green, healthy but nonetheless high-performance concrete. In the present age, concrete is not yet well established in Africa, which öfters the unique opportunity to build up a cement and concrete market based on the highest available state of technology. As this industry needs high level expertise, a central issue in implementation of skilled technology is cross-linking research institutions and laboratories. It should not be neglected that concrete is a product with comparably low transport ranges, which means that an improved concrete market will mainly support the local economy without exceeding financial drains to the international market, thus fostering the fight against poverty, which is an urgent need in most African countries.
The SPIN project highlights recent developments in the field of cement and concrete research with impact on the local and global economy. Challenges, future developments and opportunities for the African construction industry are in the focus.
The SPIN project is funded by the European Commission (EC) and supported by the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States under the project body of the ACP Science and Technology Programme. SPIN is acronym for “Spearhead network for Innovative, Clean and Safe Cement and Concrete Technologies”. The project aims to cross-link experts with industry and policy making bodies, aiming to establish sustainable cement and concrete construction in Africa.
There is a wide range of research worldwide on supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) such as fly ash and slag for substituting pure cement. Such materials are suitable to be considered in a cementitious system with ordinary Portland cement (OPC) due to their high pozzolanic properties. In addition, majority of the SCMs are said to significantly improve concrete properties especially in terms of increased strength and durability. Unfortunately, the production of such SCMs is not entirely eco-friendly and also limited to certain parts of the world, hence one has to look at alternative options.
The issue of availability of resources is a strong concept that is ever-increasing, and the use of more eco-friendly SCMs in a cementitious system is furthermore attractive. Hence this paper addresses the use of eco-friendly SCMs in concrete such as rice husk ash (RHA). Despite the fact that extensive research has been done on this material, its application in a cementitious system to obtain sufficient concrete properties is still rather limited. In a country like Tanzania, high strength concrete construction is applicable in special construction cases but certainly not a high priority. Majority of construction is still undertaken using normal strength concrete. In a ternary cementitious system consisting of OPC, RHA and other readily available resources such as limestone filler (LSF), normal strength concrete can still be produced having good performance and suitable for regular on-site construction. This paper explains a possible application of obtaining sufficient concrete properties from the available resources.
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.
Todays superplasticizers for self-compacting concrete and high Performance cementitious materials are very versatile. Typically superplasticizers are composed of a polycarboxylic backbone equipped with polyethylene oxide graft chains of variable length and grafting degree. The mode of operation of these admixtures is based on the steric repulsion of the particles upon adsorption. The adsorption is strongly depending upon the charge density of a superplasticizer and the time dependent Adsorption processes control the retention of the flow performance – an important issue particularly for ready-mix and construction site concrete. However, the properties of polycarboxylic superplasticizers typically remain a black box for users. The paper suggests a simple and rapid test method, which can be conducted without sophisticated equipment, to qualitatively distinguish between two types of superplasticizers based on the adsorption mechanism. Interpreting the results in the right way provides a powerful tool to choose the right admixture for individual time dependent flow specifications.
ln order to observe the influence of stabilising agents (STA) based on starch and diutan gum, rheometric experiments and setting tests were conducted on cement pastes with and without PCE superpiasticizers. The results show that with regard to yield stress both STAs show differing behaviours in Systems without PCE. In presence of PCE, yield stress infiuences of the STAs retreat into the background. The Vicat results exhibit that STAs can reduce the retard ing effect of PCE.
Today polycarboxylate ether based superplasticizer (PCE) is commonly used in concrete technology when high flow properties and water reduction are specified. The ionic strength of the polymers’ backbones determines the adsorption behaviour of polymers on clinker and early hydration products. The amount of required polymers for specified flow properties and the performance over the time of casting is thus determined by the molecular structure of the superplasticizer. The time depending consumption of polycarboxylate ether polymers strongly affects the reaction of aluminates and sulphate ions as well as the hydration process in general. Hence, the choice of polymers for particular flow properties greatly affects the very early properties of cementitious materials such as setting, heat evolution and autogenous deformations.
In order to better understand how PCEs influence the early properties, mixes from cement, limestone filler, viscosity modifying agent and water were varied with a high and a low charge density superplasticizer in differing amounts. Results are presented from measurements with an automatic Vicat device, an isothermal heat flow calorimeter, and shrinkage cones. Tests were conducted at 5, 20, and 30 °C.
It is shown that in presence of PCE the final set correlates well with the inflexion point of the heat flow curve, which emphasises the interrelation between C-S-H formation and setting. No such clear correlation can be found for the initial set, which is attributed to the fact that the initial set is rather a rheological than a structural phenomenon, so that other effects overlap with C-S-H formation. The results demonstrate that for a given polymer concentration low charge density polymers yield earlier setting than high charge polymers. However, this influence is overridden by the influence of the total amount of polymers in a cementitious system. Since PCE is typically added according to rheological specifications, and low charge PCE typically requires higher amounts of polymers than high charge PCE for comparable flow performance, low charge PCE retards setting more than high charge PCE.
The paper furthermore points out that there is no significant influence of the polymer type or amount on the early deformations. Since type and amount strongly affect the hydration, it is demonstrated that early setting causes higher strain after the final set. It is hence concluded that higher PCE solid contents reduce the risk of early cracks that occur at time of setting, when a solid structure has already been formed but without resistance against cracks yet.
Varying ambient temperatures in plants or on construction sites during casting of SCC can cause serious problems affecting the fresh concrete performances, such as rheological properties and setting time, with consequences for the hardened properties in the structure. By sensible choices of the components, the robustness of SCC mixtures against temperature variations can be improved. However, this aspect has not been the focus of intensive research yet. In this study the effects of varied ambient temperatures on the early performance of differently composed SCC mixtures are investigated, with emphasis on changes in rheology, early deformations, heat evolution and setting. Focus is placed on the study of the influence of the polycarboxylate ether molecule type as well as different viscositymodifying agents on the temperature robustness. Effects on the relevance for practical concrete applications are evaluated, which will provide a reliable framework of possible actions on the appropriate use of admixtures for SCC.
With ongoing innovation in process technology, the challenges of concrete technology are more and more focused on the rheological optimisation for these processes, since improper mixture stability or poor compaction ability negatively affect the concrete homogeneity and quality. However, along with the increasing complexity of today’s concrete mixture compositions, concrete becomes more prone to failure regarding the casting process. Variable properties of the raw materials typically cause changing workability. The reasons can be found among others in scattering water contents, physical or chemical properties of the cement or varying environmental temperatures. Robustness in the delicately adjusted rheology, however, is of utmost importance for modern and future process technology, from sprayed concrete over pumpable concrete towards 3D-printing, with regard to the long-term strength, the function and the durability. Typically, material induced changes cannot be identified easily due to the complex interactions of concrete constituents. Therefore, a precise and prompt counteraction is impossible. However, it is known that the yield stress can be controlled by addition of supplementary superplasticizer or stabilising agent. In combination with computerized process observation tools that can rapidly interpret and react on changes in the rheology, it is therefore thinkable, that only these two admixture types can adjust the rheology steadily and permanently, regardless of the actual root cause for observed macroscopic rheology change. The presentation will firstly give a comprehensive overview of effects at the interface between pore solution, particles and hydrates, which affect the rheology of fresh concrete. Secondly, ways are recommended how the rheology can be actively manipulated before eventually computerized methods are demonstrated that help to actively and rapidly assess and counteract performance scatter during steady casting processes.