Properties of CAC paste with varying alumina based admixtures Available to Purchase

In the case of Portland cement (PC) and ordinary concrete, supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) have been successfully employed for decades. Despite that calcium aluminate cement (CAC) shows somehow different performance (composition, properties, stability, durability, etc.) the idea of SCM could be useful also in the case of this primarily refractory binder. In this study high alumina materials were selected as protentional SCM. Specifically, four different admixtures were chosen and the impact of their 15% replacement in CAC based pastes was examined. Through the view of physical properties of cement pastes their possible applicability was evaluated. As it was mentioned CAC is primarily binder for high temperature application, and therefore measured properties were determined also after temperature loading (up to 1400 °C). It was proved that despite that all chosen SCM compose almost entirely form the aluminate, the mineralogy and granulometry of SCM represents the really important factor affecting the performance of CAC paste.