CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS RESEARCH PROJECTS AT COVENTRY UNIVERSITY

Paving Blocks Back to home page

Full Title: Additives to increase the sustainability of concrete.

Academic staff: Professor P A Claisse, Dr E Ganjian

Academic/Research Staff:

Funding to CU: £92,000 over 42 months from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Programme and Hanson Formpave.

Hanson Formpave manufacture concrete paving blocks. It is crucial for their future success to reduce the carbon footprint of their products. All possible means to achieve this are being pursued including minimisation of energy and transport use; but one key factor is cement. The environmental impact of the cement content of concrete is well known: Cement production produces approximately 800kg of CO₂ per tonne of cement, more than half of which comes from the chemical reactions in the kiln and cannot be reduced with energy efficiencies. The industry response to this has been the widespread use of CEMII cements which contain partial replacements such as pulverised fuel ash (PFA), ground granulated blastfurnace slag (GGBS) or limestone fines. In order to maintain strength these replacements are generally limited to about 35%. This new project will break through these limits and introduce a step change in technology with far higher replacement levels