History: of Cement

Throughout history, cementing materials have played a vital role and were used widely in the
ancient world. The Egyptians used calcined gypsum as a cement and the Greeks and Romans
used lime made by heating limestone and added sand to make mortar, with coarser stones for
concrete.
The Romans found that a cement could be made which set under water and this was used for
the construction of harbors. This cement was made by adding crushed volcanic ash to lime and
was later called a "pozzolanic" cement, named after the village of Pozzuoli near Vesuvius.
In places where volcanic ash was scarce, such as Britain, crushed brick or tile was used
instead. The Romans were therefore probably the first to manipulate systematically the
properties of cementitious materials for specific applications and situations.
Roman contribution to cement technology
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, a Roman architect and engineer in the 1st century BCE wrote his "Ten
books of Architecture" - a revealing historical insight into ancient technology. Writing about
concrete floors, for example:
"First I shall begin with the concrete flooring, which is the most important of the polished
finishings, observing that great pains and the utmost precaution must be taken to ensure its
durability".
"On this, lay the nucleus, consisting of pounded tile mixed with lime in the proportions of three
parts to one, and forming a layer not less than six digits thick."
And on pozzolana:
"There is also a kind of powder from which natural causes produces astonishing results. This
substance, when mixed with lime and rubble, not only lends strength to buildings of other kinds,
but even when piers are constructed of it in the sea, they set hard under water."
(Vitruvius, "The Ten Books of Architecture," Dover Publications, 1960.)
His "Ten books of Architecture" are a real historical gem bringing together history and
technology. Anyone wishing to follow his instructions might first need to find a thousand or so
slaves to dig, saw, pound and polish...
After the Romans, there was a general loss in building skills in Europe, particularly with regard

to cement. Mortars hardened mainly by carbonation of lime, a slow process. The use of
pozzolana was rediscovered in the late Middle Ages.
The great mediaeval cathedrals, such as Durham, Lincoln and Rochester in England and
Chartres and Rheims in France, were clearly built by highly skilled masons. Despite this, it
would probably be fair to say they did not have the technology to manipulate the properties of
cementitious materials in the way the Romans had done a thousand years earlier.

Cement history and the Industrial Revolution

The Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment brought new ways of thinking which led to the
industrial revolution. In eighteenth century Britain, the interests of industry and empire coincided,
with the need to build lighthouses on exposed rocks to prevent shipping losses. The constant
loss of merchant ships and warships drove cement technology forwards.
Smeaton, building the third Eddystone lighthouse (1759) off the coast of Cornwall in
Southwestern England, found that a mix of lime, clay and crushed slag from iron-making
produced a mortar which hardened under water. Joseph Aspdin took out a patent in 1824 for
"Portland Cement," a material he produced by firing finely-ground clay and limestone until the
limestone was calcined. He called it Portland Cement because the concrete made from it looked
like Portland stone, a widely-used building stone in England.
While history usually regards Aspdin as the inventor of Portland cement, Aspdin's cement was
not produced at a high-enough temperature to be the real forerunner of modern Portland
cement. Nevertheless, his was a major innovation and subsequent progress could be viewed as
mere development.
A ship carrying barrels of Aspdin's cement sank off the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, England, and
the barrels of set cement, minus the wooden staves, were later incorporated into a pub in
Sheerness and are still there now. Those who wish can sup a pint and contemplate cement
history!
A few years later, in 1845, Isaac Johnson made the first modern Portland Cement by firing a
mixture of chalk and clay at much higher temperatures, similar to those used today. At these
temperatures (1400C-1500C), clinkering occurs and minerals form which are very reactive and
more strongly cementitious.
While Johnson used the same materials to make Portland cement as we use now, three
important developments in the manufacturing process lead to modern Portland cement:

Development of rotary kilns

Addition of gypsum to control setting

Use of ball mills to grind clinker and raw materials

From the turn of the 20th century, rotary cement kilns gradually replaced the original vertical
shaft kilns, used originally for making lime. Rotary kilns heat the clinker mainly by radiative heat
transfer and this is more efficient at higher temperatures, enabling higher burning temperatures
to be achieved. Also, because the clinker is constantly moving within the kiln, a fairly uniform
clinkering temperature is achieved in the hottest part of the kiln, the burning zone.
The two other principal technical developments, gypsum addition to control setting and the use
of ball mills to grind the clinker, were also introduced at around the start of the 20th century.

Manufacture:
Portland cement is the basic ingredient of concrete. Concrete is formed when portland cement
creates a paste with water that binds with sand and rock to harden.
Cement is manufactured through a closely controlled chemical combination of calcium, silicon,
aluminum, iron and other ingredients.
Common materials used to manufacture cement include limestone, shells, and chalk or marl
combined with shale, clay, slate, blast furnace slag, silica sand, and iron ore. These ingredients,
when heated at high temperatures form a rock-like substance that is ground into the fine powder
that we commonly think of as cement.
Bricklayer Joseph Aspdin of Leeds, England first made portland cement early in the 19th
century by burning powdered limestone and clay in his kitchen stove. With this crude method, he
laid the foundation for an industry that annually processes literally mountains of limestone, clay,
cement rock, and other materials into a powder so fine it will pass through a sieve capable of
holding water.
Cement plant laboratories check each step in the manufacture of portland cement by frequent
chemical and physical tests. The labs also analyze and test the finished product to ensure that it
complies with all industry specifications.

The most common way to manufacture portland cement is through a dry method. The first step
is to quarry the principal raw materials, mainly limestone, clay, and other materials. After
quarrying the rock is crushed. This involves several stages. The first crushing reduces the rock
to a maximum size of about 6 inches. The rock then goes to secondary crushers or hammer
mills for reduction to about 3 inches or smaller.
The crushed rock is combined with other ingredients such as iron ore or fly ash and ground,
mixed, and fed to a cement kiln.
The cement kiln heats all the ingredients to about 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit in huge cylindrical
steel rotary kilns lined with special firebrick. Kilns are frequently as much as 12 feet in diameter
large enough to accommodate an automobile and longer in many instances than the height of
a 40-story building. The large kilns are mounted with the axis inclined slightly from the
horizontal.
The finely ground raw material or the slurry is fed into the higher end. At the lower end is a
roaring blast of flame, produced by precisely controlled burning of powdered coal, oil, alternative
fuels, or gas under forced draft.
As the material moves through the kiln, certain elements are driven off in the form of gases. The
remaining elements unite to form a new substance called clinker. Clinker comes out of the kiln
as grey balls, about the size of marbles.
Clinker is discharged red-hot from the lower end of the kiln and generally is brought down to
handling temperature in various types of coolers. The heated air from the coolers is returned to
the kilns, a process that saves fuel and increases burning efficiency.
After the clinker is cooled, cement plants grind it and mix it with small amounts of gypsum and
limestone. Cement is so fine that 1 pound of cement contains 150 billion grains. The cement is
now ready for transport to ready-mix concrete companies to be used in a variety of construction
projects.
Although the dry process is the most modern and popular way to manufacture cement, some
kilns in the United States use a wet process. The two processes are essentially alike except in
the wet process, the raw materials are ground with water before being fed into the kiln.

Flowchart:

Types and utilizations:

Types of Cement

Composition

Utilization

Rapid Hardening Cement

Increased Lime content

Attains high strength in early

days it is used in concrete
where form work is removed at

Quick setting cement

Small percentage of aluminium

sulphate as an accelerator and
reducing percentage of
Gypsum with fine grinding

an early stage.
Used in works is to be
completed in very short period
and concreting in static and
running water

Low Heat Cement

Manufactured by reducing tri-

It is used in massive concrete

Sulphates resisting Cement

calcium aluminate
It is prepared by maintaining

construction like gravity dams

It is used in construction

the percentage of tricalcium

exposed to severe sulphate

aluminate below 6% which

action by water and soil in

increases power against

places like canals linings,

sulphates

culverts, retaining walls,

It is obtained by grinding the

siphons etc.,
It can be used for works

clinkers with about 60% slag

economic considerations is

and resembles more or less in

predominant.

properties of Portland cement

It is obtained by melting

It is used in works where

mixture of bauxite and lime

concrete is subjected to high

and grinding with the clinker it

temperatures, frost, and acidic

is rapid hardening cement with

action.

Blast Furnace Slag Cement

High Alumina Cement

initial and final setting time of

about 3.5 and 5 hours
White Cement

respectively
It is prepared from raw

It is costlier and is used for

materials free from Iron oxide.

architectural purposes such as

pre-cast curtain wall and facing

Coloured cement

Pozzolanic Cement

panels, terrazzo surface etc.,

They are widely used for

It is produced by mixing
mineral pigments with ordinary
cement.
It is prepared by grinding

It is used in marine structures,

pozzolanic clinker with

sewage works, sewage works

Portland cement

and for laying concrete under

decorative works in floors

water such as bridges, piers,

Air Entraining Cement

It is prepared by mixing water

dams etc.,
This type of cement is
especially suited to improve
the workability with smaller
water cement ratio and to
improve frost resistance of
concrete.
This cement has high

repelling chemicals

workability and strength

It is produced by adding
indigenous air entraining
agents such as resins, glues,
sodium salts of Sulphates etc
during the grinding of clinker.

Hydrographic cement