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Innovative or derivative? The design of the bridge structures on the world’s first intercity railway between Liverpool and Manchester
Published in Ine Wouters, Stephanie Van de Voorde, Inge Bertels, Bernard Espion, Krista De Jonge, Denis Zastavni, Building Knowledge, Constructing Histories, 2018
Masonry round arches had been used for most bridges on the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Both there and on the Liverpool and Manchester Stephenson, and no doubt the Directors, recognised the economy of locally sourced materials (Liverpool and Manchester Railway Minutes of Finance Committee 1824–1831). Acquiring brickfields for the masonry work was an important part of logistical preparations. Much of the stone came from rock excavations at the western end of the line, although Thomas Brassey supplied stone for Newton Bridge and Sankey Via-duct from Storeton in the Wirral (Helps 1872). Lime, roman cement and pozzolana was supplied by local merchants. Roman cement was used in the skew arch at Crown Street. All timber for centering, piling etc had to be sourced by the Company. The former was sold on at completion.
Specifications and the standardisation of Ireland’s local harbours
Published in Ine Wouters, Stephanie Van de Voorde, Inge Bertels, Bernard Espion, Krista De Jonge, Denis Zastavni, Building Knowledge, Constructing Histories, 2018
The earliest reported use of modern concrete in marine works in the nineteenth century was in France. Recent research by Holzer (2016) suggests that French engineers had begun to experiment with the use of concrete for foundations in canal locks as early as 1800. However, in this early work the active cementitious material was not Portland cement, only later developed by J. Aspdin in 1824, but rather lime mixed with pozzolana or tarras, both volcanic substances which had long been used in making hydraulic mortars, often referred to as Roman cement (Idorn 1991, 1043). Though unlike what would be described as concrete today, these works nevertheless advanced the understanding of what was possible, developed methods for casting concrete in watery conditions, and extended its use beyond foundations to upright walls by the 1860s.
The impounding reservoirs of the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company,1845-1905
Published in Denis Smith, Water-Supply and Public Health Engineering, 2017
A visitor asked whether Portland cement had been used in any of these reservoirs? Mr. Rennison replied that in Simpson’s works masonry was normally set in hydraulic lime. Roman cement was used, on account of its greater strength, where pipes passed through the masonry. Portland cement was used at Catcleugh but he was uncertain what was used between the two construction periods. One of the Company’s directors was Wilkinson—he had patented a form of reinforced concrete construction in 1854—who had interests in a local cement works, Johnsons; another was Potter, who in addition to cement manufacture was in the gas and coke business. The Company’s records show that the source of cement alternated between suppliers, depending on which directors were present at the board meetings.
Assessment of the durability and environmental impact of seawater-activated portlandite-calcined clay binder
Published in Journal of Sustainable Cement-Based Materials, 2023
Adhora Tahsin, Salman Siddique, Warda Ashraf, Melanie Sattler
Ancient Roman concrete stands as a remarkable example of an extremely durable material that has endured exposure to seawater for over two millennia. It was produced using a mixture of seawater, volcanic ash, and slaked lime [11–14]. It offers a pathway to producing highly durable concrete with low environmental impacts [15,16], as the structures they built lasted for centuries; required much less energy to produce than modern OPC; and utilized seawater, which could mitigate our freshwater shortage [15,16]. Accordingly, in the past few years, several attempts have been made to develop novel cementitious materials by mimicking the ancient Roman concrete [16–18], but they were limited by the lack of raw materials such as coal fly ash and slag [19]. A previous study observed that combining calcined clay and portlandite with seawater can reproduce the microstructural phases of ancient Roman concrete while also providing reasonable compressive strength of around 17 MPa after 28 days of curing in seawater [20]. Seawater acts as an activator in this system and leads to faster hydration and superior strength compared to other lime-pozzolan binders [20]. This binder system was named ‘Recreated Roman Cement/Concrete’ or ‘RRC’ [20].
An Investigation of the Application and Material Characteristics of Early 20th-Century Portland Cement-Based Structures from the Historical Campus of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Published in International Journal of Architectural Heritage, 2020
István Vidovszky, Farkas Pintér
The history of modern hydraulic binders started with John Smeaton’s experiments with natural hydraulic limes (NHL) during the construction of the lighthouse at Eddystone (1756–59) which was followed by James Parker´s trials resulting in the invention of Roman cement (RC) in 1796 (Blezard 1998). Some decades later in 1824, the product name Portland cement (PC) was introduced and patented by Joseph Aspdin. Nevertheless, this hydraulic binder, or so-called “proto” PC, showed more similarities with Smeaton´s NHL (Blezard 1998) than those of PCs produced some decades later. Finally, in 1844 Johnson succeed in burning cement clinker above the sintering temperature (i.e. > 1300°C) for the first time. Nevertheless, the PCs of the second half of the 19th century were characterized by an inhomogeneous mineral composition containing, besides the main PC clinker phases (i.e., C3S, C2S, C3A, and ferrite), under and partly over burned clinker, as well as glassy phases (Blezard 1998; Campbell 1999). Until the beginning of the 20th century PC was produced in vertical shaft kilns and milled coarser as compared to modern OPCs (Note: in this article we use the term Ordinary Portland cement, OPC for PCs produced after World War II; Blezard 1998; Weber, Bayer, and Pintér 2012). Around the turn of the 20th century, the introduction of rotary kilns, ball mills, and the use of calcium sulfate as a retarding agent resulted in a development in the fabrication process and a quality increase in cement production (Blezard 1998; Weber, Bayer, and Pintér 2012).
Production of the Roman Cement in Italy: characterization of a raw material used in Tuscany between 19th and 20th century and its comparison with a commercialized French stone material
Published in International Journal of Architectural Heritage, 2018
Emma Cantisani, Ambra Falabella, Fabio Fratini, Elena Pecchioni, Silvia Vettori, Fabrizio Antonelli, Marco Giamello, Marco Lezzerini
The marly limestones suitable for the production of Roman Cement are present in different geological formations. In England, the most famous are the Eocenic London Clays and the Jurassic and Cretaceous Formations which outcrop along the coast of the English Channel. In France, they are mainly located in Jurassic formations of the Burgogna region, in Cretaceous formations of Grenoble area and in the surroundings of Marseille. Other quarrying areas are located, for instance, in Spain, in different Galician, in North Italy in the province of Bergamo (Lombardy) and Piedmont region, in the Austrian Tyrol as well as around Salzburg and in areas west and south of Vienna, in the Swiss pre-Alps, in southern Germany, in Bohemia, and in southern Poland (Cailleux, Marie-Victoire, and Sommain 2006; Hughes et al. 2008; Klisińska-Kopacz et al. 2010).