Fineness test of Cement and its Significance

Cement is an adhesive substance that acts as a binder used for construction which sets, hardens and binds materials together. The fineness of a material means the state of being little in size.

The fineness of cement is conducted to find out if the cement is finely grind or not. It is denoted in terms of the specific surface area of cement. A specific surface is exhibited as the total surface area in square metres of all the cement particles in one kilogram of cement.

The fitness test is done by straining the cement sample through standard IS sieve. The weight of the cement molecule whose size is greater than 90 microns is determined and the total percentage of retained cement particle is calculated. This process is known as Fineness of cement. Generally, Cement used for construction should have a value of fineness less than 10%.

To learn more, watch the following video tutorial.

Significance of fineness test of Cement

Testing of cement is very important because of the following reasons

• As a known fact cement hydrates when mixed with water and a thin layer forms on every side of the particle.
• The thin layer grows larger and makes cement particles discrete, as a result of which the cement hydration slows down. The bleeding of the cement also gets reduced.
• On the contrary, cement smaller particles react much faster than the larger particle.
• There are also side effects to this test as having too much smaller particles because it results in a quick setting time and leaves no time for mixing, handling and placing of the cement.
• So, to increase the setting time for having too many small particles, cement is manufactured in a different range of particle sizes and used according to its needs.

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