Technical specifications of matrix raw materials for Hatschek technology based fibrecement – A pragmatic approach

Still more than in concrete and mortar industry, individual fibrecement (FC) producers are forced to develop their own technical guidelines for the specification of their raw materials. The identification of the raw material characteristics that do have relevance for the FC-production process and/or the FC-product performance is a major issue. Furthermore the FC-producers have to convince the raw material suppliers that the FC specific requirements should be satisfied as much as possible in order to assure workable FC-production conditions as well as high quality FC-products. The present paper shows that such a FC specific approach of raw material specification requires an intimate mix of knowledge from different fields: the fundamental materials science, the raw material’s production process, the technical requirements defined by the major markets of the raw material, the FC-production process as well as the FC-product and its applications. The above approach based on many years of practical, industrial experience, is illustrated for two commonly used matrix raw materials for air-cured FC: cement and condensed silica fume.