Lafarge Cement Process Engineering Part: Complete Guide & Do

Lafarge Cement Process Engineering Vade-Mecum Part 2 — Product Quality and Development (Chapter 4, Version September 2010) is the second volume of the internal process engineering manual of Lafarge SA &mdash the world’s first cement player at its time — and it is concentrated where the value of the cement is made: the quality of the product. Where Part 1 walks the engineer through the raw materials, the grinding circuits and the pyroprocess, this Part 2 develops the complete chapter of the chemistry and physics of the finished cement: chemical characterization, the saturation formulas, the phase compositions, the physical characteristics and the development of the product.

This digital edition is part of the Complete Cement Technical Package of cementequipment.org (931 files: books, courses, Excel tools and presentations, $249.99, instant download after payment via PayPal). This guide reviews the content of Part 2, presents the real formulas of its first chapter (with units), explains who uses it, and shows its placement in the professional library in combination with Lea, Taylor, Duda and the FLS volumes.

1. Position of the Volume in the Vade-Mecum and in the Package

The document carries on every page the same header: “CEMENT PROCESS ENGINEERING VADE-MECUM — CHAPTER 4 – PRODUCT QUALITY AND DEVELOPMENT — © Copyright 1990-2010, Lafarge SA. All rights reserved — INTERNAL USE ONLY Version September 2010”. The manual is thus the final chapter (Chapter 4) of the whole corporate handbook, covering the block that in the factories is the quality department: from the chemical characterization of the intermediate and final products to the development of the cements of the country standard.

In the Complete Cement Technical Package the manual is supported by the complementary volumes: Part 1 gives the process; Part 2 gives the product; the chemistry monographs (Lea — 5th edition — and Taylor) give the science; and the Excel tools of the package reproduce the same formulas presented here (the same LSF, SR, liquid and Bogue).

2. Chapter 1. Chemical Characterization: The Formulas as Lafarge Uses Them

The chapter opens with the formulas of the industry in the Lafarge notation, including the German derivation (Kühl): the engineer finds all the classic indexes collected in one page with the company’s variants:

• Ignition Loss: defined as the weight loss of the sample to 950°; for limestone — the chain — the note gives: loss of ignition = 0.786 × C (with C = CaO type of CO2 equivalent), in the practice of the report: %CO2 = (44/56) × %CaO, then the combined H2O and organic matter; the uses to convert the raw mix analyses to the oxide base (the “recalculated to 100%”).
• Silica Ratio (SR): SR = S / (A + F); the handbook type range 3.2 to 1.3: “if SR high, hard to burn, thin coating, poor clinker reactivity” — the corporate vocabulary of the consequences: with high SR the raw mix burns with difficulty, the coating is poor and the reactivity of the clinker is reduced; with a low SR the liquid is abundant and the kiln easily melts.
• Alumina-Iron Ratio (Al2O3/Fe2O3): the control of the liquid phase in the burning zone and of the C3A content of the clinker; its influence on the cement setting and the sulfate resistance (the lower the AR, the more the C4AF, the more resistant to the sulfate attack).
• Lime Saturation: the saturation factors: KSt according to Kül — in the two formulas: KStI = 100·C/(8.2·S + 1.1·A + 7.0·F + 5.0·M) modified & KStIII = 100·(C + 0.75M)/(8.2·S + 1.18·A + 0.65·F), with the explanatory note that in certain prefixes A includes TiO2 + P2O5. The chapter hooks this to the C3S: “LSF vs C3S: y = 0.3367x + 71.6, R2 = 0.9485”: the linear relation that the plant’s laboratory needs to know the strength potential of the clinker by a single number.
• Total Alkalis as Na2O: the sum Na2O + 0.658·K2O: the alkaline problem: alkali-silica reaction, the ring formation, the circulating loads; the chapter gives the evaporation in the kiln and the correction limits.
• Percent Liquid: the liquid phase at the burning temperatures with the formulas of Lea and Parker: at 1338°C: if A/F<1.38: % liquid = 2.95A − 0.522F + M + N + K; if A/F>1.38: % liquid = 1.6F + M + N + K; at 1400°C: % liquid = 2.95A + 0.225F + M + N + K; at 1450°C (most used): % liquid = 3.0A + 0.225F + M + N + K; the note of the manual:“liquid at 1338°C influences the clinker granulation”, the link between the liquid and the coating, the granulation and the burning.
• The Bogue formulas (on clinker base): C3S = 4.07C − (6.7Ssol + 6.72A + 1.43F) — with the precise definitions: C1 = total CaO for raw mixes; C1 = total CaO − free CaO for clinkers; C1 = total CaO − free CaO − 0.7SO3 for cements (CEMI); Sol = soluble silica (silicate form only); and F ret.Con: the variations of the alkalis in the formulas.

This whole first chapter of the Part is the “great alphabet” of the laboratory: the engineer who masters these formulas from the corporate source reads the analysis of his plant as a text, at the speed of the counter.

3. The Chemical Characterization in Tables: The Reference Values of the Manual

In the chapter are also placed the reference tables that the plants of the group applied day by day to their clinkers:

Property	Typical reference used by the manual	Effect
LSF (KSt)	≈ 0.92–1.02 raw mix base	Saturation; strength and burning
SR	≈ 1.8–3.2	Burning ease & coating
AR (A/F)	≈ 1.2–2.5	Liquid phase; C3A; resistance
% Liquid at 1450°	≈ 20–30%	Clinker granulation, coating
Free lime clinker	<≈ 1.5–2% (normal burn)	Reactivity / soundness
Total alkalis Na2Oeq.	≈ 0.4–0.8%	ASR risk; ring formation
C3S approx.	55–65% (P.I.)	Early strength

The user of the package will find in the Excel tools of the package the same formulas with the same definitions, so the chapter is double-checked by the tools — the first class professional exercise: reading a laboratory report with these numbers brings out the diagnosis of the raw mix and the burn in minutes. The manual page also adds the note of “LQTS XRF analysis” and “LQTS Free lime by complexometry method” — a feature of the Lafarge internal method reference system that links the labs of the world through one standardized procedure. This tells us about the control structure beyond the page.

4. The Chapter continues: The physical characteristics and the reference tests of the cement

The product quality chapter of the manual develops beyond the chemical pages to the physical testing program: the strength development (the mortar tests by the norms of the countries), the consistency and the setting time (Vicat and Le Chatelier), the soundness, the fineness in all its aspects (Blaine, the sieves, the particle size distribution by laser), the heat of hydration, the sulphate resistance and the alkali content. In the practice of the corporate manual, each test is presented as a chain: instrument, sample, procedure, frequency, reference limit, deviations and actions — the same “cause-sequence-consequence” didactic found in Part 1.

The manual then interprets the physical results in the language of the user: the Blaine → speed of set; the 32µm percentage → the water of the concrete; the C3A → the sulfate resistance; the alkali → the ASR of the concrete; the SO3 → the false set and the optimum strength. With these patterns the laboratory speaks the same language as the concrete customer, and the book of quality is not a form but a negotiation tool between the plant and the market.

4. Product development: From the national standards to the cement of the market

The development part of the chapter tells the history of the product of the group: developing a new cement means defining the required properties from the standards of the country (the Indian/Chinese/American/Faz classes), verifying the raw material, the burning and the grinding to produce it, testing and documenting in the lab pilot scale, and managing the approval and the launching in the market. The manual covers the methodology:

• The target writing: from the standard requirement (the strength class, the setting, the resistance) to the design of the clinker: the C3S, the fineness, the sulphate; the optimization loops between the lab and the mill.
• The test programs: the design of the experiments in the plant: the laboratory batches, the industrial trials with a ‘security window’, the measurement of the properties in the standard and the accelerated, the statistical evaluation: minimum, maximum, average, deviation, prediction of the future.
• The launch: from the prototype to the certification of the product, the quality manual of the site, the reproducibility of the batches, the follow-up of the strength in the development period.

This chapter accompanies the buy itself of the section: it is a practical textbook of the product quality management of times of the group: every recent cement chapter of the world literature draws on the same plan (the same institutes of the ISO and EN), but here the forum and the tone are the corporate workshop, with the decisions of the factory in the case of the paper.

5. The user of the manual in the modern plant

The user of Part 2 is the laboratory and the quality engineer, but also the process engineer who in the shift must interpret the final analysis:

Role	Use of Part 2
Laboratory chemist	Chemical characterization, reference methods & formulas of the group
Quality manager	Physical testing discipline, customer specification mapping
Process engineer	Linking the kiln to the result: LSF/free lime to the quality
Product developer	Methodology of the new cement development and validation
Engineer of the supplier	Reference definitions of the corporate specifications

6. The reading experience: Scanned dossi= and searchable text

The edition in package is the industrial scan of the original internal document (with the pages at the same order), and the text of the main pages is searchable in most PDF readers: “KSt”, “Bogue”, “liquid”, “Ignition”, “Na2O”— each of these words locates the corresponding formula in two seconds. This is precisely the way the document is used in the plants: not read linearly, but identified, opened at the formula, and closed. The 132 pages of this part; the same header of the internal use, and the aesthetic of the corporate of the 1990s: the value is in the content, the density: 1 step above the later editions.

4.1 The Physical Testing Program in Detail: The Tests of the Chapter

Since the finished cement is sold on its physical behavior, the chapter structures the tests in the corporate sequence, from sampling to the report:

• Fineness: the Blaine specific surface (cm2/g) and the sieve at 32 and 90 micrometres; the particle size distribution by laser diffraction for the modern; the relation established in the manual between the 32 micro residues, the water demand and the strength of the 28 days: with the same C3S, the fineness curve decides the strength of the market.
• Setting and soundness: the Vicat apparatus for the initial and final setting times, the Le Chatelier soundness test: the manual explains the physical meaning of each limit: a too rapid set (flash/quick set) tells about C3A/SO3 problems; a false set tells about the sulphate dehydration; the expansions tell the free lime and the periclase volume.
• The strength development: mortar prisms by the national standards, the classes of the 2/7/28 days curves; the manual interprets the strength as a fingerprint of the process (burning, grinding, sulphate, air) — and the cause-analysis table connects each “lower than expected” to the probable process deviation: the free lime of the clinker, the residue, the gypsum, the storage of the cement.
• Heat of hydration and the warm concrete: the isothermal calorimetry, the heat by mass; the chapter connects the C3A/C3S content with the thermal release of the concrete structures (the mass concretes, dams): the thermocouple numbers of the sites.
• Chemical resistance: the sulfate attack test, the chloride permeability (the RCPT-like numbers), the alkali content; the manual looks for the classification of the products for the environments: the maritime, the soils.

Test by test the manual returns to the same form: procedure, control, evaluation, decisions: the more every laboratory of the world creates protection, the more the manual uses the fixed disciplines to make the result comparable between continents.

4.2 The Quality Control System: The Plant and the Group Level

The chapter does not end at the instruments; it extends to the management of the quality in the chain of the group. Pages cover:

• The control plan of the day: what the plant samples and treats: the quarry (each shift), the raw meal (each hour with XRF), the clinker (each 2pt), the cement (each batch at the packing); with the frequencies, the methods, the limits and the action rules: the three-level alarm of the manual: tolerate, adjust, isolate the batch.
• The statistical discipline: the mean, the standard deviation, the Cpk/Cp indices, the control charts X–R, the detection of the trends before the “bottom signal” of the boundary: the quality is managed as an enemy of the variance, not as the pursuit of the average.
• The exchange and the inter-laboratory: the two loops of the LQTS (the “Lafarge Quality Testing System”) carry by the fonts: the XRF calibration, the complexometry method of the free lime, the yearly round robin between the group labs; the manual describes the same indexes of the holder between the labs of the network: the harmonization is the group ge.: N1 matrix of the world.
• The traceability: the batch numbers of the cement at the packing, the storage and the dispatch, the certificates, the 28-day reports of delivery: the recall of the batches in case of a complaint is the legal body of the quality work; the manual shows the fields of the “lot card” the plants completed by pen.

For the engineer who moves from a plant to an audit: the quality section of the Part is the China map: with the mapping of the manual, the understanding of any modern plant’s QC is less a mystery: the philosophy is the same everywhere.

4.3 The Product Development Method in Depth: The Pilot and the First Charge

The development half of the chapter develops a complete mini-project management of the new products:

• The portfolio logic: the cement types by the national classes: the general purpose, the rapid hardening, the low heat, the sulfate resisting, the blended (PSC, PPC, OPC+): each is defined by the combination of the clinker, the fineness, the additive and, in the group practice, the bit of the plant: the development is the translation between the market and the process windows that the same plant can produce.
• The laboratory scale to the industrial: the sample achievements in the pilot mills of the group, the prediction of the industrial by the scaling methods (the adj mixer/Blaine/energy relations), and the first industrial charge with a ‘freeze’ of the other parameters: the measurement of the deviation
• The certification: the tests of the authorities (the national standard, the ISO, the UN system of the countries of the export), the certificates, the official reports, the quality manual; the manual is the seed of the modern “type testing” documentation of any producer
• The long life of the product: the durability racks of the samples in the park (the years for the sulphate), the monitoring of the deliveries, the “product years”: a mature product is the one that has gone through cycles of evaluation.

The methodology of the chapter is today usable 1:1 with the modern tools for the product (the Excel strength models of the package are a execution of the same thinking).

5.1 The Analysis: the Two Typical Cases of the Chapter in real life

To give the flavor of the manual’s pages, two typical cases of Chapter 4 are carried out below:

1. Case 1: “The 28 days has dropped by 5 MPa, why?” — The user of the manual follows the chain: free lime of the clinker (rising? under burning), the Blaine (falling? residues?), the % sulfate of the cement (already?), the moisture, the air in the mill, the temperature of the cement, the storage time: the chapter narrows the probable to the two most likely by the order of the parameter effects: the solution of the case ends with the adjustment of the burning or the mill: the corporate discipline: never two actions at the same time.
2. Case 2: “The customer complains of the setting of the concrete” — the first response of the quality chain: is it a set of the admixtures or of the cement? The manual puts the questions of the workplace (water, temperature, admixtures) and the lab (Vicat, SO3, the cement heat) in parallel, and down the tree to the most prudent: a too high C3A with a low sulphur balance or a cement stored warm; then the actions of the plant (the sulphate, the storage by priority FIFO) are the standard.

These cases explain why the industry of the manuals (the former: the old internal document) is appreciated: the theory is there, but always as the support of the decision tree.

8.1 The Complement: The environmental and the admixtures aspects of the chapter

The chapter also takes the environmental chemistry of the product block: the chromium VI in the cement and the reduction (the Cr VI limits of the EU, the ferrous sulphate addition), the chlorides of the admixtures, the water soluble hexavalent: the modern laboratories know these pages by heart, because they are the gateway of the conformity of the EU in the export: the manual of the 2010 already includes the norms of the time (the EU Directive 2003/53/EC on the chromium): the minefield of the declaration. The same pages hold the expanded tests: the leaching tests, the heavy metals and the water demand of the cement, and the report formats the team must complete before the environmental authorities of each country of operation; the engineer who studies the chapter recognizes in it the conventions of every modern conformity assessment, the identical analysis that the group runs in its network of laboratories across the continents.

Also the admixtures of the concrete: the cement–admixtures compatibility (the SO3 and the lignosulfonates, the superplasticizers, the pozzolans): the manual describes the laboratory tests (the mini slump, the setting retardation) that prefabricate the existing compatibility check: the “mistake” of the concrete’s not the cement, the interface between the two is the product: this page is used by the customer complaint departments of the shampoo worldwide.

7.1 The volume in the training of the industry: The “internal” of today’s courses

Finally, from the formation history: several public courses of the industry (the ACMP, the process engineering certifications, the university mastères of the cement) have reused the scheme of the chapter: chemical → physical → standards → development; and some training references to the “Vade-Mecum” literally in the slides: the influence of the document in the formation of the sector growth with the partners of the package (Holderbank and PCA — also present in the package): the same line: the property: chemical characterization, the analysis. And the professional of the quality, with the whole manual in his library, is aligned with the formation of the leaders.

With the other books of the package is at:

• Lea’s Chemistry (5th ed.): more extensive tests, more of the physical chemistry in depth — Part 2 gives the corporate application of the same
• Taylor (Cement Chemistry): the crystallographic hydration — Part 2 uses the results pragmatically
• Duda Data Book: equipment and material properties and global tables — Part 2 assumes the lab
• Part 1 of the same manual: the production chapters — the pair covers the whole process including the product
• Excel tools of the package: the same formulas to compute live — the exercise suuro.

Read after Part 1 (the complete Vade-Mecum of the package), the engineer sees the turn: from the bed of the quarry to the certificate of the laboratory, the whole cycle of the product as the group of the first word iron is organized.

8. Frequently Asked Questions

The manual shows ‘internal use only’ &mdash is it legal to own it?

The distribution for the general professional audience of the library is the subject of the copyright of Lafarge SA; the package does not claim the authorship, the content is © Lafarge SA, and the acquisition is a library copy for the licensed single user for study. The professional uses it as a process/study reference; the commercial culture of the engineering respects the holder while preserving the availability of the knowledge.

Is Part 2 enough without Part 1?

The chapters are designed as a sequence: Part 1 for the production process, Part 2 for the product; for the complete formation the package makes both parts available, and the professional of the quality should have both (they complement each other); for a specific quality role, Part 2 already is the quality chapter of the series.

Are the formulas of the chapter the same as the international books?

Exactly: LSF, SR, AR, liquid %, Bogue: the same definitions, with the particular notation of the group (the KSt from Kühl; the liquid from Lea-Heit; the references LQTS); the reading skill of the engineer is then transferable to any plant: only the naming differs.

Does the edition contain the tables with the values?

Yes: the pages include the tables of the formulas and values of the group, the graph ’ LSF vs C3S’ with the regression (R2=0.9485) and the same from the LQTS laboratory system, which gives to the reader the actual industrial references.

How do I receive the manual?

The payment is one-time $249.99 via PayPal for the whole package; the download access is delivered to the email; the manual comes in full, with the OCR of the text and with the other 930 files.

9. Conclusion

The Product Quality & Development chapter of the Lafarge Vade-Mecum is one of the few documents that expose, in one continuous line, the corporate language of the industrial control: from the ignition module to the Bogue, from the liquid at 1338°C to the customer specification, from the LQTS reference sheets to the development of a new cement class. It is not a copy of the textbooks: it is the working manual of a world operator, pages written in the factories and by the factories, tested by the shift reports of hundreds of lines across the globe. This is also why the copy on the desk of the modern quality engineer still gets the same respect as on the day of its distribution: the physics it describes and the discipline it teaches did not age.

As the second volume of the manual in the Complete Cement Technical Package, it completes the corporate formation of the professional: the process in Part 1, the product in Part 2, and the whole library of the books and the tools in the package: the engineer who keeps the two parts, the books and the calculators together rules the complete cycle, from the chemical characterization to the certificate of delivery, with every formula and every reference number of the leader at hand. $249.99 — one-time — is less than the cost of any plant training course and it remains yours forever: tools, books, courses, and this rare internal document of the leader, delivered instantly to your e-mail, licensed for your own professional use. Buy the package today and take the quality chapter of the giant into your own plant.

This part of the Lafarge cement process engineering series focuses on the detailed equipment and process data of the complete plant: the reader gets the concrete numbers, the dimensioning rules and the operating windows that the cement engineer needs for the design, the troubleshooting and the optimization of the production line, together with the worked examples and the references of the original course.

This file is part of the Complete Cement Technical Package (931 files) available from cementequipment.org. Contents © respective rights holders; library copy for the licensed single user.