Portland Cement
Mixing Concrete - Cement
One of the more common difficulties people understand when dealing with concrete for the first time is understanding the terminology.
Cement – cement is the powder that is mixed with water and bonds with aggregates such as gravel or sand. Cement is a fine powder and comes in multiple forms for specific purposes. The most common cement type has many different names depending on where you are located. The most common names are
-Type 1 (USA)
-Type N (International)
-Ordinary Portland Cement OPC (International)
-Type 10 (Canada)
What Is Portland Cement?
Cement is called portland cement because of the method it is manufactured and not an indication of where the cement was made. There are many additional types of cement such as type S, hydraulic cement and fast initial setting etc. however the general use portland cement is suitable for almost any application. Advanced concrete mixes can be achieved with additives, referred to as admixes, while using general use portland cement which will be discussed further in this tutorial.
Difference Between Cement And Concrete
Concrete – concrete refers to the finished product of aggregate, cement and water mixed together. Most commonly the word concrete implies an aggregate mixture of both sand and gravel. The advantage of concrete is its functional usage, but most specifically its low cost per volume of finished material. A similar, if not better concrete can be achieved using mortar, however the addition of large aggregate such as gravel increases the yield per quantity of cement powder while maintaining a sufficient finished strength and workability.
Mortar / Grout - Mortar or grout generally refers to a form of concrete with a lack of larger aggregates. This is not exclusive to sand and cement mixes but most commonly sand and cement powder are mixed together in a ratio of 1:1 up to 8:1. The amount of cement always remains constant at 1 for ratio equations and the aggregate amount changes. For maximum strength a ratio of three parts sand to one part portland cement is optimal.
Proceed to the section on How To Mix Concrete - Admixtures