Coal ash Portland Cement Mortars Sulphate Resistance

Coal fly ash (CFA), coal bottom ash (CBA) are residues produced in thermo-electrical power stations as result of the coal combustion in the same boiler. Therefore, some characteristics of the coal fly ash (CFA) are comparable with those of the coal bottom ash (CBA). Nevertheless, coal bottom ash size is larger than coal fly ash one. Consequently, it was found that it is necessary to grind the coal bottom ash (CBA) to reach a similar size to that one of the CFA. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the performance of Portland cement mortars made with coal fly ash (CFA), coal bottom ash (CBA) or mixes (CFA+CBA), against sulphate attack. The methodology is based on the expansion of slender bars submerged in a sodium sulphate solution (5%) according to the ASTM C-1012/C1012-13 standard. It has been found that mortars elaborated with CEM I 42.5 N (without ashes) presented the largest expansion (0.09%) after a testing period of 330 days. Mortars made with CEM II/A-V exhibited lower expansion (0.03%). Summing up, it can be established that mortar expansion decreases when the coal ash amount increases, independently of the type of coal ash employed. The novelty of this paper relies on the comparison between the performances of Portland cement mortars made with coal fly ash (CFA) or coal bottom ash (CBA) exposed to external sulphate attack. Doi: 10.28991/cej-2021-03091640 Full Text: PD

El esquema de aceptación europeo para productos de construcción en contacto con agua de consumo humano

The quality of the water intended for human consumption is regulated through the Directive 98/83/EC (Drinking Water Directive). Products used in the construction of water supply systems can cause significant deterioration of the water quality and therefore many Member States operate national acceptance schemes for these products. These products are covered by the Directive 89/106/EEC (Construction Products Directive) which calls for the preparation of European specifications for construction products and the approximation of the regulatory provisions of the Member States.In order to minimise the differences in the national regulatory provisions and to enable the elaboration of European specifications for construction products in contact with water for human consumption, the regulatory authorities of the Member States have agreed to establish a European Acceptance Scheme (EAS) for construction products.El desarrollo legislativo y reglamentario europea se ha ido desarrollando de distinta manera en los diferentes Estados miembros (EM). Por su parte, la entrada en vigor de determinadas Directivas Europeas llevan asociado el desarrollo específico de algunos aspectos concretos, o la unificación de criterios, que pueden ser diferentes en varios EM.Los productos de construcción en contacto con agua de consumo humano están afectados por las circunstancias descritas anteriormente. Por una parte, distintos Estados miembros tienen establecidos diferentes criterios de aceptación para la instalación de productos en contacto con el agua de consumo, y por otra parte, tanto la Directiva sobre Productos de Construcción como la Directiva sobre agua de consumo humano afectan a distintos aspectos reglamentarios que han de desarrollarse para poder cumplir con lo establecido en estas directivas.Con el fin de adecuar la reglamentación de los distintos EM, que forman parte de la Unión Europea (UE), a los requisitos y especificaciones recogidos en las directivas mencionadas anteriormente, se vio la necesidad de desarrollar el Esquema de Aceptación Europeo para Productos de Construcción en Contacto con Agua de Consumo Humano (EAS)

Aplicación de la caracterización eléctrica al estudio de las fases hidratadas de cemento con adición de escorias de centrales térmicas

En este trabajo, se estudia la evolución desde su inicio de las fases de hidratación de materiales cementicios a los que se incorporan cenizas volantes y escorias procedentes de centrales térmicas. Mediante medidas de espectroscopía de impedancia eléctrica (EIS), y de difracción de rayos X (XRD), se analiza el proceso desde la etapa inicial visualizando los cambios que se producen. Se consideran diferentes elementos de sustitución y se determina para cada uno de ellos cuando se inician los procesos, cuando se completan y los cambios que sufren durante el mismo. Se relacionan los valores de EIS con los de DRX para determinar las fases que se transforman, y se indica para cada sustitución como se modifica la transformación de las fases en función del tiempo y en comparación con el material de referencia. Se pone de manifiesto que la utilización de EIS, trabajando en función de la frecuencia y con los parámetros eléctricos adecuados es una herramienta muy potente para hacer el seguimiento a tiempo real de estos procesos

A New Predictive Model Based on the ABC Optimized Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines Approach for Predicting the Remaining Useful Life in Aircraft Engines

[EN] Remaining useful life (RUL) estimation is considered as one of the most central points in the prognostics and health management (PHM). The present paper describes a nonlinear hybrid ABC–MARS-based model for the prediction of the remaining useful life of aircraft engines. Indeed, it is well-known that an accurate RUL estimation allows failure prevention in a more controllable way so that the effective maintenance can be carried out in appropriate time to correct impending faults. The proposed hybrid model combines multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS), which have been successfully adopted for regression problems, with the artificial bee colony (ABC) technique. This optimization technique involves parameter setting in the MARS training procedure, which significantly influences the regression accuracy. However, its use in reliability applications has not yet been widely explored. Bearing this in mind, remaining useful life values have been predicted here by using the hybrid ABC–MARS-based model from the remaining measured parameters (input variables) for aircraft engines with success. A correlation coefficient equal to 0.92 was obtained when this hybrid ABC–MARS-based model was applied to experimental data. The agreement of this model with experimental data confirmed its good performance. The main advantage of this predictive model is that it does not require information about the previous operation states of the aircraft engine.S

Coal Bottom Ash for Portland Cement Production

Because of industrialization growth, the amount of coal power plant wastes has increased very rapidly. Particularly, the disposal of coal bottom ash (CBA) is becoming an increasing concern for many countries because of the increasing volume generated, the costs of operating landfill sites, and its potential hazardous effects. Therefore, new applications of coal bottom ash (CBA) have become an interesting alternative to disposal. For instance, it could be used as a Portland cement constituent leading to more sustainable cement production by lowering energy consumption and raw material extracted from quarries. Coal fly and bottom ashes are formed together in the same boiler; however, the size and shape of these ashes are very different, and hence their effect on the chemical composition as well as on the mineralogical phases must be studied. Coal bottom ash was ground. Later, both ashes were compared from a physical, mechanical, and chemical point of view to evaluate the potential use of coal bottom ash as a new Portland cement constituent. Both ashes, produced by the same electrical power plant, generally present similar chemical composition and compressive strength and contribute to the refill of mortar capillary pores with the reaction products leading to a redistribution of the pore size

Hard-Rock Stability Analysis for Span Design in Entry-Type Excavations with Learning Classifiers

[EN] The mining industry relies heavily on empirical analysis for design and prediction. An empirical design method, called the critical span graph, was developed specifically for rock stability analysis in entry-type excavations, based on an extensive case-history database of cut and fill mining in Canada. This empirical span design chart plots the critical span against rock mass rating for the observed case histories and has been accepted by many mining operations for the initial span design of cut and fill stopes. Different types of analysis have been used to classify the observed cases into stable, potentially unstable and unstable groups. The main purpose of this paper is to present a new method for defining rock stability areas of the critical span graph, which applies machine learning classifiers (support vector machine and extreme learning machine). The results show a reasonable correlation with previous guidelines. These machine learning methods are good tools for developing empirical methods, since they make no assumptions about the regression function. With this software, it is easy to add new field observations to a previous database, improving prediction output with the addition of data that consider the local conditions for each mine.S

Exploring the local environment of the engineered nanoclay Mica-4 under hydrothermal conditions using Eu3+ as a luminescent probe

High charge mica Na4Al4Si4Mg6O20F4, Mica-4, is a promising candidate as a filling material to immobilize high-level radioactive waste in deep geological repositories due to its extraordinary adsorption capacity. In contrast to traditional clay materials, the structural composition of this mica, with a high content of aluminum in the tetrahedral sheet, enhances its chemical reactivity, favoring the formation of new crystalline phases under mild hydrothermal conditions, and thus providing a definitive isolation of the radionuclides in the engineered barrier. Moreover, this synthetic clay has some features that allow its use as an optical sensor by doping with luminescent rare earth cations such as Eu3+. In this paper we discuss the local structure of the nanoclay Mica-4 using Eu3+ as a local probe to track the physical and chemical modifications under hydrothermal conditions. For that purpose, a set of hydrothermal experiments has been carried out heating Mica-4 and an aqueous Eu(NO3)3 solution in a stainless steel reactor at different temperatures and times. Optical properties of the as-treated samples were characterized by spectroscopic measurements. The fine peak structure of emission and the relative intensity of different Eu3+ transitions as well as the luminescence lifetime have been correlated with the structure and composition of this nanoclay, and the interaction mechanisms between the lanthanide ions and the clay mineral at different temperatures and times. Special attention has been paid to understanding the role of the aluminum content, which may act as either an aggregating or dispersing agent, in the optical features and reactivity of the system.We would like to thank Instituto de Investigación Marqués de Valdecilla (IDIVAL) (Projects NVAL16/17 and INNVAL19/18) and Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (Project PGC2018–101464-B-100) for financial support

Estudio de la evolución de las fases de hidratación de cementos con adición de cenizas de fondo mediante mediante caracterización eléctrica y DRX

La caracterización eléctrica de materiales polifásicos cuya composición evoluciona en el tiempo permite el estudio de los fenómenos implicados. Para obtener resultados adecuados con cambios rápidos es necesario establecer un compromiso entre el rango de frecuencias seleccionado y el tiempo de medida. Los cementos evolucionan muy rápidamente en los primeros minutos de hidratación, por tanto la caracterización de los productos formados requiere la utilización de técnicas versátiles con elevada sensibilidad. También, tanto la velocidad de hidratación como los productos formados se modifican cuando se sustituye parcialmente el clinker por adiciones, como las cenizas volantes o las escorias. En el presente trabajo se utiliza la caracterización eléctrica para evaluar el comportamiento durante la hidratación de cementos con sustitución parcial de cenizas de fondo, procedentes de centrales térmicas de carbón. Actualmente estos subproductos se envían mayoritariamente a vertederos, lo que hace muy interesante su valorización como constituyente del cemento. Distintos cementos, con adición parcial de cenizas de fondo, han sido analizados en comparación con cementos equivalentes con cenizas volantes y con un cemento sin adición. Por último, la caracterización eléctrica se ha complementado con el análisis evolutivo de los compuestos cristalinos mediante difracción de rayos X

Analysis of Change of Physical Properties of Organic Repair Products due to Fire Exposition

Organic repair products for concrete can be exposed to accidental incidents, like fire. The increase of temperature produces a modification in some of their properties. In general, these types of repair products have organic fibers to increase their tixotropic properties, but they are more sensible to the high temperature than the Portland cement or aggregates. In order to analyze the behavior of organic repair mortars with temperature three types of repair mortars are studied. These repair products have the organic components composed by acetate fiber of polyvinyl like Vinyl Acetate Acrylate (VAA), Copolymer of Vinyl Acetate Vinyl Versatate (VeoVA) and Acrylic polymers fibres. The repair products are tested increasing the temperature from 1.7ºC /min until 200ºC, 400ºC or 600ºC respectively during 20 minutes. After that, the samples are cooled in four different cooling conditions two of them slow and two others fast, and with and without oxygen. These conditions are used in order to simulate the different conditions that can occur during the cooling after fire. After the testing the visual aspect, the color and brightness and the open porosity is analyzed in each condition of test. In this work the relationship between the temperature of exposition, the cooling conditions and the change in some physical properties are studied

Incidencia de la metodología en los procesos de aprendizaje de los alumnos en la asignatura de matemática de tercer ciclo de educación básica del sistema integrado de San Sebastián Salitrillo, del Departamento de Santa Ana, año 2017

Desde esta perspectiva, esta investigación infiere en que la enseñanza de cualquier disciplina debe ser atendida por un especialista. En este caso particular de la matemática, ya que el sistema educativo en El Salvador permite el desarrollo de la disciplina de matemática a docentes de diferentes especialidades. De hecho en el país este fenómeno existe con mucha regularidad en los centros escolares provocando una inestabilidad educativa en el área de la matemátic