Rock-solid technology

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BATTERED BATCHING: Although dated batching plants, like this one in Palestine, are still common in the Middle East, new technology is beginning to take a hold.

With the volume of concrete needed across the world increasing each day, new technology is increasing the output of the batching plant and to get it on site.

Two months ago we looked at the new technology that is transforming the way quarries are run.

Now, we take a step along the path and see how the process of making crushed limestone in to cement and concrete is being forced into the twenty first century.

Time

Back in the mists of time, an engineer named John Smeaton was charged with building a lighthouse on a shard of rock some twenty miles of the south coast of England.

This was a problem as in 1756, nobody had succeeded in building anything offshore in this manner, in fact it was the third time that a lighthouse had been tried. and it was far from clear what substance would hold back the ravages of the tide. Smeaton came up with the idea of using a substance named ‘hydraulic lime' which would set even underwater.

The plant technology that mixed these early mortars was, to say the least, crude, though somebody worked out very early on that a simple Archimedes screw in a drum could effectively mix cement. The mix, of course, is critical and early facilities lacked any real means of controlling the materials, resulting in variable quality and a lot of waste.

The product itself was also of variable quality, due to the all-natural formula of the cement.

Many years later, in 1824 another Englishman took out a patent on a synthetic formula of limestone and clay, which he named 'Portland Stone' on account of it's resemblance to the rocks quarried on the island of Portland.

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