Ternary cements as a sustainable alternative in Civil Engineering

Abstract

Construction industry is among the most polluting human activities, mainly due to CO2 emisions produced during portland cement manufacture. The cement production industry has incorporated byproducts of other industries, to produce a more sustainable material. This would be due to the decrease of raw materials, treat byproducts in a safe way, and improve the properties of the cement manufactured. The durability of the structures would also be improved. The main problem is that the properties are not good in the short term. In the last years there have been many efforts regarding the incorporation of two or more aditions, because they produce a synergic effect that improve the properties of concrete or mortars. This type of cements has been called ternary cements In this work ternary cements have been produced using three different aditions: ground granulated blast furnance slag, and fly ashes, as active aditions, and limestone filler as a non-active adition. The total amount of addition is limited to a 35% maximum, for all of them together, as it is stated in the instruction for structural concrete, EHE-08. 35% is the maximum adition allowed for concrete production, and always added to ordinary portland cement. Mechanical properties and some durability parameters have been studied in the short terms for both a ternary cement and the results have been compared with a binary cement.The results are promising, and show a good behavior, what means that these cements could be safely used in real structures.