ARIZONA CONCRETE

John McCollam

Geology 101, Section 12262 Randy Porch 20 November 1996

ARIZONA CONCRETE According to the Mine Faculty at the University of Arizona, cement is manufactur ed primarily from suitable limestone and shale rocks. Arizona had two dry-proces s cement plants in 1969, namely the Arizona Portland Cement Company plant in Pim a County, near Tucson, and the American Cement Corporation plant at Clarkdale, i n Yavapai County (52-53). The use of cementing materials goes back to the ancient Egyptians and Romans, bu

t the invention of modern portland cement is usually attributed to Joseph Aspdin , a builder in Leeds, England, who obtained a patent for it in 1824. Currently, the annual world production of portland cement is around 700 million metric tons (Danbury). Many people use the words concrete and cement interchangeably, but they=re not. Concrete is to cement as a cake is to flour. Concrete is a mixture of ingredien ts that includes cement but contains other ingredients also (Day 6-7). Portland cement is produced by pulverizing clinker consisting essentially of hy draulic calcium silicates along with some calcium aluminates and calcium alumino ferrites and usually containing one or more forms of calcium sulfate (gypsum) as an interground addition. Materials used in the manufacture of portland cement m ust contain appropriate proportions of calcium oxide, silica, alumina, and iron oxide components. During manufacture, analyses of all materials are made frequen tly to ensure a uniformly high quality cement. Selected raw materials are crushed, milled, and proportioned in such a way that the resulting mixture has the desired chemical composition. The raw materials ar e generally a mixture of calcareous (calcium oxide) material, such as limestone, chalk or shells, and an argillaceous (silica and alumina) material such as clay , shale, or blast-furnace slag. Either a dry or a wet process is used. In the dr y process, grinding and blending operations are done with dry materials. In the wet process, the grinding and blending are done with the materials in slurry for m. In other respects, the dry and wet processes are very much alike. After blending, the ground raw material is fed into the upper end of a kiln. The raw mix passes through the kiln at a rate controlled by the slope and rotationa l speed of the kiln. Burning fuel (powdered coal, oil, or gas) is forced into th e lower end of the kiln where temperatures of 2600F to 3000F change the raw materi al chemically into cement clinker, grayish-black pellets about the size of 1/2-i n.-diameter marbles. The clinker is cooled and then pulverized. During this operation a small amount of gypsum is added to regulate the setting time of the cement. The clinker is gr ound so fine that nearly all of it passes through a No. 200 mesh (75 micron) sie ve with 40,000 openings per square inch. This extremely fin gray powder is portl and cement (Kosmatka and Panarese 12-15). Dany Seymore of Show Low Ready Mix said that the cement used by Show Low Ready Mix is trucked in by Apex Freight Company and comes from the cement plant in Cla rkdale, Arizona, now know as Phoenix Cement. Their aggregate comes from Brimhal l Sand and Rock in Snowflake, Arizona. Show Low Ready Mix uses Fly Ash from the A.P.S. power plant just out side of Joseph City, Arizona, in their cement. The m ixtures they use are as follows: Silicia Dioxide Cement 21% Ash 62% Aluminum Trioxide Cement 4% Ash 23% Ferric Oxide Cement 3% Ash 6% Calcium Oxide Cement 64% Ash 3.5% Mag. Oxide Cement 2.5% Ash 1.2% Sulfur Trioxide Cement 3% Ash .2% These combine to make: 1. Tricalcium silicate C3S 2. Dicalcium silicate C2S 3. Tricalcium aluminate C3A 4. Tetracalcium aluminoferrite C4AF 1 and 2 make up 75% of cement. 1 and 2 plus H2O equal CSH (Calcium Silicate Hyd rate) which is the glue. Fly Ash is C3S plus C2S which equals Calcium hydrazide which is a white stuff and water soluble. Calcium Hydrazide and Fly Ash equal CSH. The winter and summer mixtures are different due to the weather conditions. F or winter, Fly Ash is not used because it inhibits the set time of the concrete. Also used is accelerators to help the concrete set faster. A material called Fibermesh is used in the concrete for reinforcement and to control cracking as t he concrete sets. Mr. Seymore also states that heat and moisture are the main c omponents to make concrete set up.

The concrete is mixed out of the plant into the truck so the materials can be fe athered together and mixed up properly. The PSI ratings are determined by the m ixture of sand, aggregate, cement, water, and chemical additives that are mixed together. The most common mixtures for residential are 2500 to 3000 PSI. Concrete cannot be delivered any where that is more than 90 minutes away from th e batch plant, unless a chemical inhibiter is used to put the concrete to sleep until it reaches the sight of delivery. Then another chemical is added to activa te the concrete. Show Low Ready Mix mixes approximately 25,000 to 30,000 cubic yards of concrete in Show Low per year. That is only 70 to 75 percent of the total concrete poure d in Show Low. There are a few other companies that also handle the Show Low ar ea. Concrete is basically a mixture of two components: aggregates and paste. The pas te, comprised of Portland cement, (the term APortland cement@ pertains to a calc areous hydraulic cement produced by heating the oxides of silicon, calcium, alum inum, and iron.) Water binds the aggregates (sand and gravel or crushed stone) i nto a rocklike mass. The paste hardens because of the chemical reaction of the c ement and water. The paste is composed of Portland cement, water, and intrapped air or purposely entrained air. Cement paste ordinarily constitutes about 25% to 40% of the tota l volume of concrete. Since aggregates make up about 60% to 75% of the total vol ume of concrete, their selection is important. Aggregates should consist of part icles with adequate strength and resistance to exposure conditions and should no t contain materials that will cause deterioration of the concrete. Aggregates are generally divided into two groups: fine and coarse. Fine aggregat es consist of natural or manufactured sand with particle sizes ranging up to 3/8 inches; coarse aggregates are those with particles retained on the No.16 sieve and ranging up to 6 inches. The most commonly used maximum aggregate size is 3/4 inch or 1 inch. A continuous gradation of particle sizes is desirable for effic ient use of the cement and water paste. For any particular set of materials and conditions of curing, the quality of har dened concrete is determined by the amount of water used in relation to the amou nt of cement . Some advantages of reducing water content are: increased compres sive and flexural strength, lower absorption, increased resistance to weathering , better bond between successive layers and between concrete and reinforcement, less volume change from wetting and drying, and reduced shrinkage cracking tende ncies. The less water used, the better the quality of the concrete, provided it can be consolidated properly. The freshly mixed (plastic) and hardened properties of concrete may be changed by adding admixtures to the concrete, usually in liquid form, during batching. Admixtures are commonly used to: adjust setting time or hardening, reduce water demand, increase workability, intentionally entrain air, and adjust other concre te properties (Kosmatka and Panarese 1-2). After completion of proper proportioning, batching, mixing, placing, con solidating, finishing, and curing, hardened concrete becomes a strong, noncombus tible, durable, abrasion-resistant, and practically impermeable building materia l that requires little or no maintenance. Concrete is also an excellent buildin g material, because it can be formed into a wide variety of shapes, colors, and textures for use in almost unlimited number of applications. Works Cited ACement and concrete.@ The 1996 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. CD-ROM. Danbury: Grolier, 1996. Day, Richard. The Home Owner Handbook Of: Concrete and Masonry. New York : Bounty Books, No Copyright Date. Kosmatka, Steven H., and William C. Panarese. Design and Control of Concr ete Mixtures. Skokie, Ill.: Portland Cement Association, 1990. Seymore, Dany. President of Show Low Ready Mix. Personal intervie w. 11 November 1996. College of Mines Faculty, University of Arizona. Arizona: Its People and Resou rces. Tucson, AZ.: The University of Arizona Press, 1972.