Products that can reduce the use of additional materials and equipment when working in confined spaces, while allowing effective use of labour and maintaining physical distance guidelines are likely to be of increased demand as construction resumes.
Options from CEMEX to support these requirements include high-performance concrete solutions, mortars and its digital platform CEMEX Go.
For example, Evolution, CEMEX’s self-compacting concrete range, which can spread into place, fill formwork, and encapsulate even the most congested reinforcement by means of its weight, with little or no vibration.
This self-compacting concrete is ideal for casting heavily reinforced sections or can be placed where there can be no access to vibrators for compaction and in complex shapes of formwork which may otherwise be impossible to cast, giving a far superior surface to conventional concrete.
As self-compacting concrete can flow from a single point, is self-levelling, self-compacting and eliminates the need to hire expensive vibration equipment or use additional labour. This offers both health & safety and cost benefits.
Additionally, the Advanced fibre reinforced concretes, a range of fibre-reinforced ready-mix concretes, containing a blend of polypropylene microfibres and engineered macro fibre or steel fibre solutions.
There are many features of fibre reinforced concrete. However, the main one is the reduction or elimination of crack control steel mesh. This provides a number of benefits, including a reduction in material delivered, stored and handled on-site and the minimisation of labour required for cutting and placing steel reinforcement.
Rapid hardening concrete, such as CEMEX’s Promptis, can also help save valuable time during construction. Promptis has similar characteristics to conventional concrete, but it can reach accelerated early strength after just six hours while still maintaining initial flow properties and consistency for up to 120 minutes. Formwork can be stripped after only six hours (subject to mix design and guidance). Benefits of this type of product include increased productivity, cost savings and removal of on-site delays.
Meanwhile, CEMEX’s factory produced mortars offer clean, efficient production with reduced wastage and increased productivity on site. CEMEX can provide dry mortar in a silo, ready-to-use wet mortar and dry bagged mortar, meaning there is a solution available whatever the size of the site or requirements of the job. The dry silo systems also reduce manual handling and the risk of injury in production, for improved health and safety.
Finally, the CEMEX Go digital platform allows customers to easily order online, whatever their location. This means they can manage their account quickly and efficiently, including tracking deliveries, receiving digital invoices, placing and amending orders, without having to be in the office.
Richard Kershaw, technical manager for CEMEX Materials UK, said: “With safe working on site paramount and physical distancing guidelines still in effect, products that minimise labour, contribute to physical distance and reduce additional materials or equipment on site whilst simultaneously maximising productivity are now essential.
“We, therefore, wanted to identify and highlight which of our products and services would be of most use to our customers in this regard. Using a self-levelling concrete, or our digital ordering platform, for instance, can ease the challenge of meeting public health guidelines while continuing operations, ensuring a safe yet productive site. As a business, CEMEX continues to provide full service as it has done throughout the pandemic, and we are ready to meet our customers’ needs and support their projects, whatever the requirements.”
CEMEX R&D, Innovation and Business Development projects are part of the global R&D collaboration network, headed by CEMEX Research Centers, based in Switzerland.
