Jet mill grinding of portland cement, limestone, and fly ash: Impact on particle size, hydration rate, and strength

While the majority of commercial ordinary portland cement (OPC) is ground using a ball mill or a vertical roller mill, other industries have shown that jet mill grinding can be an alternative approach for grinding materials. This paper investigates the potential application of jet mill grinding for two systems. The first system is a blend of OPC and 15% limestone, and the second system is a blend of OPC and 40% fly ash. It was observed that when jet mill grinding is used, the average particle size of the powders is decreased to approximately 4μm or less with a narrower particle size distribution than that achieved using ball milling. In addition to evaluating the size and shape of the particles obtained from the jet mill grinding process, this paper focuses on evaluating, using isothermal calorimetry, the effect these changes in particle size and distribution have on the extent and rate of hydration as well as their effect on the compressive strength of cement pastes or mortars. This study also investigated differences between inter-grinding and blending separately ground materials to form an OPC/limestone mixture. Both inter-ground and separately ground OPC/limestone mortars demonstrated an accelerated hydration at early ages accompanied by an increase in early age strength. This appears to be primarily due to the increased surface area of the finer particles that provides more available surface for the hydration reaction. The inter-grinding appeared to be more effective than grinding the materials separately because an improved graded particle size distribution was obtained. The inter-ground OPC/limestone mixture shows accelerated initial hydration at water to powder ratios (w/p, where powder=cement+limestone) of 0.50 and 0.35 when compared with the samples before grinding. At the lower w/p of 0.35, the OPC/limestone mixture appears much more efficient. In the OPC/fly ash mixture, jet mill grinding also accelerates the rate of hydration and strength development.