Particle packing density and limestone fillers for more sustainable cement

Cement blending with mineral admixtures, especially with byproduct or waste product powder, can effectively reduce consumption of cement and promote the ecology. Recently, an innovative concept was proposed to replace of “coarse” cement grains by the inert fillers for sustainable cement in the low w/c concrete cement. As a basic mechanism, particle packing plays an important role in such replacement or blending. In the first part of study, the paper discusses the particle packing aspect of cement grains, limestone filler (LF) and LF blended cement. The new developed wet packing method and a dry packing method are proposed for the evaluation purpose. The paper presents results of packing tests with the influences of PSD, cement type, vibration, mixing, blending proportions, etc. The advantages and limitations of two packing methods are also discussed in this paper.