PERFORMANCES OF LIMESTONE MODIFIED PORTLAND CEMENT AND CONCRETE Luc Courard, University of Liège, Belgium Duncan Herfort, Aalborg Portland A/S, Denmark Yury Villagrán, LEMIT and CONICET, Argentina Corresponding author: Luc Courard – University of Liège, Department of Architecture, Geology, Environment and Constructions, Allée de la Découverte, 9 (Quartier Polytech) – 4000 LIEGE (Belgium), Email:
[email protected] 1. Introduction Fine limestone has been added to Portland cement for decades. This is normally achieved by “intergrinding” it with Portland cement clinker in the cement mill. Under normal operating conditions this will result in a surface area of the limestone fraction of between 800 and 1100 m 2/kg (depending on the grindability of the limestone) for a surface area of the clinker fraction of in the region of 400 m 2/kg. Less often the limestone is ground separately and blended with Portland cement. Separate addition of limestone to concrete as a clinker replacement is not widely practiced in conventional concrete, but is used as filler for modifying the rheology of self-compacting concrete. In the early literature limestone was generally regarded as “inert filler”. For this reason it has e.g. become the main constituent in most masonry cements where high levels of replacement of the Portland cement are needed to reproduce the properties of traditional lime mortars. However, for its application in concrete, which is the primary focus of this report, the limestone’s contribution to the hydration reactions can be significant when it is co-ground with the clinker, albeit in relatively small amounts. So much so that it can arguably be classified as an SCM alongside GBFS and fly ash.