The fineness and particle size distribution of Portland cement

The final step in the production of cement is to grind the clinker pellets (and added gypsum)
into a fine powder. The resulting individual cement particles have a variety of angular
shapes, and a wide range of sizes.
Most of the cement particles will consist of regions of each of the four main cement
minerals.
: SEM micrograph of a Portland cement showing the wide range of particle sizes and shapes.
The size of a cement particle has an important effect on the rate at which it will hydrate when
exposed to water. As it reacts, a layer of hydration product forms around the outside of the
particle, separating the un reacted core of the particle from the surrounding water.
As this layer grows thicker, the rate of hydration slows down.
Therefore, a small particle will react much more quickly than a large particle.
A particle that has a diameter of 1 m will react completely in about 1 day, whereas a
particle with a diameter of 10 m will react completely in about 1 month.
Particles larger than about 50 m will probably never become fully reacted, even if there is a
sufficient source of water.
Clearly, the particle size distribution is critical for controlling the rate at which cement sets
and gains strength.
There must be a certain amount of small particles to ensure that the cement sets in a
reasonable amount of time, but if there are too many small particles the cement will set too
quickly, leaving no time for mixing and placing. Fortunately, the grinding process has a
natural tendency to produce a wide range of particle sizes, so this is not a problem.
About 10 wt% of the cement is made of particles larger than 50 m, and only a few wt% is
particles larger than 90 m.
On the fine end, less than 10% of the cement is particles smaller than 2 m. Such a
distribution is traditionally measured by a sedimentation process, in which the size of the
particles is determined from the rate at which they sink in a column of liquid. A faster and
more precise method is laser particle analysis. A small amount of powder is dispersed in a
solvent such as methanol and then pumped through a clear tube in front of a laser. The
particle size distribution is calculated from the diffraction pattern generated by the scattering
of the laser light off of the particles.
However, this is only one aspect of the particle size distribution, the other being its breadth.
If two cements have the same average particle size but different distributions, the cement
with the broader distribution will have more fine particles and thus will exhibit a faster rate
of early hydration. A better parameter for describing the fineness of the cement (at least in
terms of knowing how reactive it will be at early times) is the specific surface area, because
most of the surface area comes from the smallest particles. The most common method for
characterizing the surface area of cement is the Blaine air permeability test, which is
described by an ASTM standard [13]. This test is based on the fact that the rate at which air
can pass through a porous bed of particles under a given pressure gradient is a function of the
surface area of the powder. A chamber of known cross sectional area and volume is filled
with a known mass of cement, and then the time required to pass a known volume of air
through the powder is measured. While the surface area can in theory be calculated explicitly
from this data, in practice the surface area is determined through an empirical equation
developed by measuring powders of a known surface area using the same instrument. The
resulting value, called the Blaine fineness, is today expressed in units of m2/kg, although in
previous times it was expressed in cm2/g. The Blaine fineness of OPC usually ranges from

300 500 m2/kg (3000 5000 cm2/g). It should be noted that the specific surface area is
a notoriously difficult parameter to pin down because most materials have features at many
different length scales, so that the more sensitive the measurement, the more surface area
will be found.
As a final note, the specific surface area of a cement powder tells little about the size of the
largest particles or the breadth of the particle size distribution.
These parameters affect the workability of the cement at a given water/cement ratio and the
degree of hydration and strength development over long periods of time,
Among other factors.
No single parameter can substitute for a full particle size distribution.