*New Course for July 2024*
A 12-part, on-line, training course covering the technology, issues and challenges of switching to fly ash containing cement production from traditional cements.
There is a long history of the use of fly ash in concrete. This is inevitably linked with the development of the coal fired electricity generation industry which generates the ash as a bi-product. Initially the driving force for the use of fly ash in concrete was to solve the environmental problem of the disposal of the massive quantities of ash generated. That was enabled by the addition of fly ash to concrete improving the performance of concrete in many applications. Today a major driving force for the production of fly ash containing cements is the imperative to decarbonise and reduce the clinker content of cement and concrete. This imperative chimes with the commercial benefits of maximising the substitution of clinker by fly ash in cement and concrete. Inevitably there are challenges and questions for the cement companies implementing the strategy of producing and marketing fly ash cements:
- What types of ash are suitable as SCMs?
- How reactive will the fly ash be when replacing clinker in cement and concrete?
- Should the fly ash be used as a clinker substitute in blended cement?.......or as a cement substitute in concrete?
- In blended cement should the fly ash be interground with the clinker or separately ground and blended?
- How to switch existing cement customers from current cement products to new cement products containing fly ash?
- How will the performance of the new cements be matched to existing cement products?
- How to gain customer acceptance of the new fly ash containing cement products?
- What will be the product licensing requirements for the new cements?
In this course we are going to attempt to address all these questions. Often there is no right and wrong answer to these questions, only options.
The 12 sessions of the course will cover the following:
- Introduction to fly ash cements
- History of fly ash in cements and concrete
- The pozzolanic reaction and the benefits of fly ash in concrete
- Economics of fly ash cement production and sales
- Fly ash composition and specifications
- Fly ash beneficiation
- Applications of fly ash cements and concrete
- International specification for fly ash cements
- Fly ash cements product development
- Importance of clinker reactivity to maximise fly ash content in cements
- Fly ash cement production plant design
- Quality control, quality assurance and the maximisation of the fly ash content of cement
The on-line lectures will be supplemented by Excel based exercises to supplement the learning and understanding process in the tried and proven CemNet Training format.
The course is suitable for anyone who is interested in the ways and means to decarbonise the cement industry. This will include managers, technical and commercial cement industry personnel. In particular anyone who is involved in the development of strategy for cement companies.