The Understanding Cement Blog

Welcome to the cement blog, where cement science goes informal!

The pages in the main part of the site contain information that is, to the best of my knowledge, published, peer-reviewed and widely accepted; those pages wear suits and ties with clean shoes.

Not here - this is jeans, tee-shirts and walking boots territory! Here, I'll be writing whatever I feel like writing; there'll be cement and science and mostly these will overlap as cement science, but not necessarily. Over time, there should be something for everyone, with items on cement production, hydration, concrete, deleterious processes, cement history, analytical techniques, ice cream and maybe some other stuff.

Unlike the main pages, the blog is likely to contain opinion, anecdote and whimsy, not necessarily to be regarded as based on peer-reviewed science.

Many are short "mini-pages" although some are longer - just scroll down below and click on the links.

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Dec 21, 2011

Cement - related conferences, exhibitions, meetings and webinars

This page contains details of forthcoming cement and concrete conferences, exhibitions, meetings and webinars.

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Oct 13, 2011

Concrete curing - this is what can happen if you don't do it properly!

The effect on paste microstructure of poor concrete curing is shown, with an example illustrated with an SEM image

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Jun 8, 2011

EN 197-1:2000 Cement Calculator

Cement calculator in spreadsheet format for EN 197-1 cements.

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Nov 30, 2010

Alkali-silica reaction ( asr ) and glass

Brief experiment to show that cement paste reacts with glass in a form of asr.

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Nov 22, 2010

Glenfinnan Viaduct

Glenfinnan Viaduct, Scotland: the world's first mass concrete structure?

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Nov 22, 2010